The Information Ecosystems of National Diplomacy: The Case of Spain, 1815-1936

Workers in information-intensive professions live in an information ecosystem in which they create, analyze, store, and communicate information as their core activities. This article illustrates how that happens through the historical case study of Spanish diplomats over the course of more than a century. Their information ecosystem proved extensive, encompassing institutions, bodies of tacit and explicit knowledge, and routine and ad hoc collections of information. This essay offers a model of how to explore the history of a profession's information ecosystem, relying on administrative histories, memoirs, and an analysis of the extant paper trail left by these diplomats.