LIS510 lecture 2

Thomas Krichel2005-02-02

information infrastructure

• The amount of information grows over time.• We live in the information age. • Rubin claims a sense of unease.

– information explosion– flood of information– bombarded by information– information overload (most widely used)

• Is that true?

IMHO: all wrong

• We can talk about an overload of data.– WWW– advertising, esp. spam– traffic signs– background music in shopping malls

• These things become information when they are relevant to you.

• Are you well-informed?

information needs

• Does your spouse love you?• Were there ever weapons of mass

destruction in Iraq?• Did God create the world in 7 days?• Is there a history of heart disease in your

family?• When is the last train before Xmas between

Woodside and Brentwood that takes a bicycle?

access to information• First there has to be data that encodes the

information.• There there has to be some way that the

person with the information need finds the data if they need it.

• And has be some way a person is made aware of the data if there is reason to believe that it will be information to her/him.

• All of these are jobs of and for information professionals.

libraries

• they are a part of the information infrastructure that connect people with data/information.

• Rubin examines the place of the library in the information structure. This is matter in itself and does not need to be introduced by the debate on information overload.

information cycle• information is created • it is distributed• it is disseminated• it is used

– end-use – intermediate use

• new information is created from old• two ways to look at it

– actors– channels

creators of information

• Rubin:– authors– artists/musicians– database producers

• Thomas:– archivists– educators– financial industry

products

• Rubin: – books– magazines– databases– web pages

• Thomas:– music files– records of any kind– services where information is key

product/service

• digital technology detaches the information from its physical container

• information becomes a service, rather than a product.

• this is a tax-relevant distinction– in Europe, there is a low VAT rate for

books/journals– but electronic journals are a considered a

service and get full VAT.

"servicification" of information

• Information is moving from product to service.

• To update a book – you have to print all copies anew– replace all old copies

• To update a web site is much easier but the web site is expected to be up-to-date.

• This has great potential for the information professional.

distributors

• Rubin:– publishers– vendors (?)

• can be anything– Internet service providers (?)

• really only arrange for transport, like pizza delivery man

• at most as disseminator

disseminator• Rubin:

– educational institutions– libraries– museums– business & government (anybody?)

• Thomas:– remove business, replace by advertising– leave government agencies

users

• This is all the rest of the community.• Users may be end-consumers.• Users may be authors.

disintermediation

• The web has brought about a possibility to dis-intermediate.

• Authors can directly bring content to users without the use of distributors or disseminators.

• However this is potential and has not been widely adopted.

• Good example: academic author.• Bad example: real estate sales.

networks and devices

• Rubin examines networks and devices as an illustration of the scope taken by the information infrastructure.

• This is useful to get an idea, but it can not be taken as a classification or analysis of the information infrastructure.

Rubin's networks• Internet • Financial networks • Telephone network • Online services• Public data network • Power networks• Cellular networks • Broadcast TV • Satellite networks • Power networks• Radio networks • Transportation• Cable TV network • Public Safety networks• Direct Broadcast satellite

use of information "outlets"

• Overall trends by Rubin– Television viewing is up

• broadcast television is going down• cable television is going up

– Video watching up– Internet usage is up strongly– Usage of print media is declining

• I saw a pew Internet study showing that Internet use mainly comes at cost of television watching.

print industry

• (Rubin probably means the contents industry)

• Book and e-book market is growing, but reading time remains constant.

• Periodicals remains steady.• Printed newspaper reading is declining.

databases• Database numbers are growing• There is a tendency to disintermediation in

vending.• There is tendency away from metadata only

databases towards full-text databases• This implies a fuzzy border with the "print"

industry• If you count database purely as abstracting

services they are probably declining

libraries• Rubin has listed them last, and does not

much have to say about them, just to say that they are evolving

• He has some statistics– 94,345 school libraries and media centers– 10,452 special libraries– 9,445 public libraries– 3,480 academic libraries– 1,326 government libraries

• Number of non-school libraries are falling.

Internet email and WWW• They have been fastest growing media • There are digital divides by race, age,

income. • Email has the biggest individual share, the

rest are various uses of the WWW. IP phone is small but growing.

• Internet use is 44% from home,20% from work, 12 from school, 5% from libraries.

• Libraries play an important role to reduce the digital divide.

telephone system

• It has a dual role as– end medium– carrier of computer network traffic

• Cell phone usage is still growing strongly in the US.

• The industry as a whole still suffers from an overexpansion in the 90s

http://openlib.org/home/krichel

Thank you for your attention!