Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Uppsala, Sweden, June 27-29, 2016 A rejoinder to Nicolaisen's refutation of Hjorland's relevance definition

Introduction. Dr. Nicolaisen has claimed a refutation of the definition of relevance as provided by the present author. This present paper responds to Nicolaisen's paper. Method. Hjorland's original definition of relevance is exemplified and each of Nicolaisen's arguments are examined. Results. All Nicolaisen' arguments failed to consider the differences between defining the concept of relevance and the measurement instances of it. His arguments are, therefore, misdirected and irrelevant. Furthermore, his 'refutation' resembles the well-known mythical 'proof' that bumblebees cannot fly. Conclusion. It is concluded that the relevance definition under discussion is still valid and it is the most fruitful one that has been suggested so far.