Information Science Vol 2 prelims and intro

PR OO F2 INFORMATION SCIENCE PR OO F2 INFORMATION SCIENCE OO F2 Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies Edited by David Nicholas and Eti Herman PR Volume II Managing Information for Optimum Accessibility and Usability First published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Editorial material and selection © 2014 David Nicholas and Eti Herman; individual owners retain copyright in their own material OO F2 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identiication and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data ISBN 978-0-415-68299-2 (set) -- ISBN 978-0-415-68300-5 (volume 1) -- ISBN 978-0-41568301-2 (volume 2) -- ISBN 978-0-415-68302-9 (volume 3) -- ISBN 978-0-415-68303-6 (volume 4) 1. Information science. 2. Information services. 3. Electronic information resources. 4. Information technology. 5. Information behavior. 6. Information society. 7. Knowledge economy. I. Nicholas, David, 1947- II. Herman, Eti. Z665.I58255 2014 020--dc23 2013048579 ISBN: 978-0-415-68299-2 (set) ISBN: 978-0-415-68301-2 (Volume II) Typeset in Times New Roman MT by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire PR Publisher’s Note References within each chapter are as they appear in the original complete work CONTENTS OO F2 VOLUME II: MANAGING INFORMATION FOR OPTIMUM ACCESSIBILITY AND USABILITY Acknowledgements ix Introduction to Volume II 1 PART 4 The generation of new information 9 4.1 The scholarly quest for new contributions to the extant body of knowledge 11 17 11 Who does research and with what results? A. J. MEADOWS 18 Re-thinking new knowledge production: a literature review and a research agenda 46 PR LAURENS K. HESSELS AND HARRO VAN LENTE PART 5 The capturing and control of information 83 5.1 The selection and acquisition of recorded knowledge 85 19 The roles of collections and the scope of collection development 85 MICHAEL K. BUCKLAND 20 The changing nature of collection management in research libraries JOSEPH BRANIN, FRANCES GROEN, AND SUZANNE THORIN v 100 Contents 5.2 The processing and organization of recorded knowledge 119 21 119 Knowledge organization systems: an overview GAIL HODGE 22 Structure and function in retrieval 127 ALAN GILCHRIST 23 Cataloguing in an electronic age 137 MICHAEL GORMAN 148 OO F2 5.3 The architecting of recorded knowledge in a digital environment 24 Information interaction: providing a framework for information architecture 148 ELAINE G. TOMS PART 6 The dissemination and efective intermediation of information 165 6.1 The difusion of information in the digital era 167 25 167 Whither libraries? or, Wither libraries F. WILFRID LANCASTER 26 Aftermath of a prediction: F. W. Lancaster and the paperless society 186 ARTHUR P. YOUNG 27 The role of social networks in information difusion 202 PR EYTAN BAKSHY, ITAMAR ROSENN, CAMERON MARLOW AND LADA ADAMIC 6.2 The changing practices of scholarly information dissemination 222 28 222 Scientiic communication: new roles and new players JULIE M. HURD 29 Scholarly communication in the digital environment: the 2005 survey of journal author behaviour and attitudes IAN ROWLANDS AND DAVID NICHOLAS vi 237 Contents 6.3 Information brokering 257 30 257 Agents and angels JOHN SEELY BROWN AND PAUL DUGUID 6.4 People as information sources: interpersonal information sharing 31 Information seeking in social context: structural inluences and receipt of information beneits 278 278 ROB CROSS, RONALD E. RICE, AND ANDREW PARKER 302 OO F2 6.5 Information sharing in the age of social media 32 Social media use in the research worklow 302 IAN ROWLANDS, DAVID NICHOLAS, BILL RUSSELL, NICHOLAS CANTY AND ANTHONY WATKINSON 33 Classifying ecommerce information sharing behaviour by youths on social networking sites 323 BERNARD J. JANSEN, KATE SOBEL AND GEOFF COOK 6.6 Scientiic data sharing 351 34 351 Data sharing by scientists: practices and perceptions CAROL TENOPIR, SUZIE ALLARD, KIMBERLY DOUGLASS, ARSEV UMUR AYDINOGLU, LEI WU, ELEANOR READ, MARIBETH MANOFF AND MIKE FRAME 403 35 403 PR 6.7 The role of the information professional as information intermediator The mission of the librarian JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET 36 Ortega revisited 420 LESTER ASHEIM 37 The information enfranchisement of the digital consumer ETI HERMAN AND DAVID NICHOLAS vii 431 Contents 6.8 Libraries in today’s digital world 449 38 449 Designing libraries round human beings MAURICE B. LINE 39 Ranganathan’s relevance in the 21st century 462 DAVID MCMENEMY 40 What is Library 2.0? 468 KIM HOLMBERG, ISTO HUVILA, MARIA KRONQVIST- BERG AND GUNILLA WIDÉN- WULFF 484 OO F2 6.9 The curation and preservation of information 41 Digital preservation, archival science and methodological foundations for digital libraries 484 SEAMUS ROSS Decision criteria in digital preservation: what to measure and how CHRISTOPH BECKER AND ANDREAS RAUBER PR 42 viii 509 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OO F2 The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reprint their material: Elsevier for permission to reprint A. J. Meadows, ‘Who Does Research and with What Results?’, Communicating Research (New York: Academic Press, 1998), pp. 79–114. Elsevier for permission to reprint L. K. Hessels and H. van Lente, ‘Re-thinking New Knowledge Production: A Literature Review and a Research Agenda’, Research Policy, 2008, 37, 4, 740–60. Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint M. K. Buckland, ‘The Roles of Collections and the Scope of Collection Development’, Journal of Documentation, 1989, 45, 3, 213–26. PR Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint A. Gilchrist, ‘Structure and Function in Retrieval’, Journal of Documentation, 2006, 62, 1, 21–9. Taylor & Francis for permission to reprint M. Gorman, ‘Cataloguing in an Electronic Age’, Cataloging & Classiication Quarterly, 2003, 36, 3/4, 5–17. John Wiley & Sons for permission to reprint Elaine G. Toms, ‘Information Interaction: Providing a Framework for Information Architecture’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2002, 53, 10, 855–62. The Johns Hopkins University Press for permission to reprint A. P. Young, ‘Aftermath of a Prediction: F. W. Lancaster and the Paperless Society’, Library Trends, 2008, 56, 4, 843–58. ix AC k n ow l e d g e m e n t s Taylor & Francis for permission to reprint J. M. Hurd, ‘Scientiic Communication: New Roles and New Players’, Science & Technology Libraries, 2004, 25, 1–2, 5–22. Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint I. Rowlands and D. Nicholas, ‘Scholarly Communication in the Digital Environment: The 2005 Survey of Journal Author Behaviour and Attitudes’, Aslib Proceedings, 2005, 57, 6, 481–97. OO F2 Harvard Business Publishing for permission to reprint J. S. Brown and P. Duguid, ‘Agents and Angels’, The Social Life of Information (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press, 2002), pp. 35–62. IEEE Publishing for permission to reprint R. Cross, R. E. Rice and A. Parker, ‘Information Seeking in Social Context: Structural Inluences and Receipt of Information Beneits’, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and, Cybernetics – Part C – Applications and Reviews, 2001, 31, 4, 438–48. Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint I. Rowlands, D. Nicholas, B. Russell, N. Canty and A. Watkinson, ‘Social Media Use in the Research Worklow’, Learned Publishing, 2011, 24, 3, 183–95. Sage Publications for permission to reprint B. J. Jansen, K. Sobel and G. Cook, ‘Classifying Ecommerce Information Sharing Behaviour by Youths on Social Networking Sites’, Journal of Information Science, 2011, 37, 2, 120–36. PR The Antioch Review for permission to reprint J. Ortega y Gasset, J. Lewis and R. Carpenter, ‘The Mission of the Librarian’, The Antioch Review, 1961, 21, 2, 133–54. Copyright ©1961 by the Antioch Review, Inc. The University of Chicago for permission to reprint L. Asheim, ‘Ortega Revisited’, The Library Quarterly, 1982, 52, 3, 215–26. Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint E. Herman and D. Nicholas, ‘The Information Enfranchisement of the Digital Consumer’, Aslib Proceedings, 2010, 62, 3, 245–60. Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint M. B. Line, ‘Designing Libraries Round Human Beings’, Aslib Proceedings, 1998, 50, 8, 221–9. Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint D. McMenemy, ‘Ranganathan’s Relevance in the 21st Century’, Library Review, 2007, 56, 2, 97–101. x Contents Emerald Group Publishing for permission to reprint K. Holmberg, I. Huvila, M. Kronqvist-Berg and G. Widén-Wulf, ‘What is Library 2.0?’, Journal of Documentation, 2009, 65, 4, 668–81. Taylor & Francis for permission to reprint S. Ross, ‘Digital Preservation, Archival Science and Methodological Foundations for Digital Libraries’, New Review of Information Networking, 2012, 17, 1, 43–68. OO F2 John Wiley & Sons for permission to reprint C. Becker and A. Rauber, ‘Decision Criteria in Digital Preservation: What to Measure and How’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2011, 62, 6, 1009–28. Disclaimer PR The publishers have made every efort to contact authors/copyright holders of works reprinted in Information Science: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. This has not been possible in every case, however, and we would welcome correspondence from those individuals/companies whom we have been unable to trace. xi PR OO F2 INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME II OO F2 Volume II assembles the essential thinking on the management of information for its optimum accessibility and usability. It thus encompasses the entire chain of information, the process through which recorded knowledge is transmitted from its originator to the consumer: the generation, organisation, processing, architecture, publishing and dissemination, intermediation and curation of information throughout its life cycle. Looking therefore at the theoretical foundations and practical strategies of ensuring that information provision achieves its proclaimed goal of furnishing individuals with accurate, timely and complete information tailored to their distinctive needs, this section delineates the whole information process whilst focusing on its principal functions and agencies. Part 4: The generation of new information PR The central role accorded to knowledge in all spheres of contemporary social and economic life, as a result of which information has become a commodity of major value, undoubtedly renders the generation of new information more important than ever. However, if traditionally the scholarly quest for fresh contributions to the existing state of knowledge was seen as an end in itself, by now the justiication of the research enterprise has become the production of ‘knowledge for use’ instead of ‘knowledge for its own sake’. The two papers comprising Part 4 look at these comparatively new developments, juxtaposing the scholarly pursuits of yore with those of today’s greatly changed research atmosphere. Presenting the traditional view of the scholarly producers and propagators of information, A. J. Meadows sets out to examine the psychological and sociological factors motivating people to embark on a scientiic career and the prerequisites for academic success (Chapter 17). Along the way, he explores some of the more central features of the scholarly undertaking: productivity, its measurement and its variation by age; quality as relected by citations; membership in the research community, communication and collaboration. Next, introducing a distinction between the traditional and the new scientiic 1 I n t ro d u C t I o n t o V o lu m e I I practices, which go under the terms ‘Mode 1’ and ‘Mode 2’, respectively, Laurens K. Hessels and Harro van Lente critically review the considerable body of literature that has accumulated on the subject (Chapter 18). The new mode of knowledge production, whilst decidedly diferent from the traditional one, irst and foremost inasmuch as it is no longer located primarily in scientiic institutions and structured by scientiic disciplines, nevertheless by no means displaces its predecessor. Rather, as it emerges next to the age-old scholarly ways, the possibility of future shifts in the balance of Mode 1 and Mode 2 over time seems to be indicated. Part 5: The capturing and control of information PR OO F2 In our increasingly information-dependent world, advancing human knowledge is more than ever an undertaking of vital importance and a major driver of societal and cultural development. Fortunately, potential contributors to the universal information base, needing to stand, as they do, ‘on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them’, so that they can further examine, analyse, experiment with and modify human knowledge, surely have an easier time of it in today’s internet-based, information-rich environment. Easier, certainly, and efectual, too, provided it is via the better controlled and organised fashion of access to information aforded by libraries, although, lamentably, this is not invariably how present-day scholarly information seekers, be they professional or amateur, go about it. The papers in this part thus look at the traditional measures of organisation and processing of information undertaken by libraries for the beneit of their readers. Michael K. Buckland introduces the subject (Chapter 19) by exploring the scope and purposes of library collection development, which he deines as the assembling of materials in anticipation of their use. Situating the selection and acquisition component of the professional eforts aimed at ensuring access to knowledge in its historical context, he yields insights into the problems that were involved in the undertaking at a time when collections centred on physical media and, as a result, space for their storage was an overriding consideration. Joseph Branin, Frances Groen and Suzanne Thorin (Chapter 20) broaden the canvas by tracking the evolution of the approach to the capturing of information to serve the needs of library patrons, via the terms referring to it, from ‘collection development’ to ‘collection management’ and inally, to ‘knowledge management’. As their review patently indicates, life in an internet-based digital world, where access to information rather than its ownership is the norm, expands enormously the range of policy-making, selection, planning and budgeting involved in the attempts to ensure that information seekers’ needs are adequately met by the library. Very much in the same vein, the literature testiies to far-reaching changes in libraries’ traditional information processing and organisation roles, too. Hardly surprisingly, of course, for, as Gail Hodge points out in her overview 2 I n t ro d u C t I o n t o V o lu m e I I OO F2 of knowledge organisation systems, presented next (Chapter 21), these days librarians are increasingly called upon to pay special attention to electronic information, whether created or held locally or accessed in a distributed fashion, and to organise it into digital libraries, too. This, as Elaine G. Toms explains in the paper on the architecting of information, which concludes this part (Chapter 24), necessitates a diferent, more visual approach to the organisation of content, for today the interaction with information is not only query-driven, but, courtesy of the web, also expected to be an ‘experience’. Fortunately, librarians have at their disposal a host of technologyenabled, rapidly evolving opportunities for creating, capturing and organising information. It is important to note, however, as Alan Gilchrist contends in his paper (Chapter 22), that the core traditional ideas of Information Science are just as relevant now as they were before. Indeed so, and it is nowhere more apparent than in the case of cataloguing, which has as its express goal the safekeeping of the four vital attributes of any well-regulated information base: organisation, retrievability, authenticity and stability. This, as Michael Gorman puts forward in the paper to follow (Chapter 23), at a time when we are faced with what looks like an impossible task: bringing order to the chaos of the internet and the web. Nevertheless, he suggests, if we remain cognisant of the lessons of history and apply the well-tested and proven principles of bibliographic control to what he dubs ‘the electronic swamp confronting us’, we can do it. Part 6: The dissemination and efective intermediation of information PR The successful completion of people’s undertakings across various situations and contexts hinges to a great extent on the possibilities for interactive communication among similarly interested individuals and/or on access to the past knowledge accumulated on a topic. Indeed, people continually acquire ideas and data either from other people or from the vast variety of information sources available in print-on-paper or digital form, evaluate the validity and worth of these ideas and data, utilise some and even disseminate the results, if and where relevant, to their family, friends and community in general. This is particularly true where scholars are concerned, for the scholarly enterprise is and always has been based on communication. Indeed, researchers’ ability to contribute to the advancement of human knowledge is contingent upon their continuous dialogue with their colleagues. However, with all that peer-to-peer communication is indeed the absolute prerequisite of making scientiic progress, so is access to previous indings: researchers, aspiring to alter the existing state of knowledge by a new contribution, link together individual pieces of scholarly work; this, by situating their own work in the 3 I n t ro d u C t I o n t o V o lu m e I I PR OO F2 extant knowledge body, and submitting it to further debate and criticism in subsequent publications. With communication thus indubitably forming an essential part of the way we live and make progress in our understanding of the world around us, our times are certainly the best of times for our purposes, as the easy availability and efortless accessibility of the host of resources, channels and facilities enable the transferring of information from one individual to the other(s) in a matter of seconds. The next part takes a closer look at the developments in this area in our contemporary digital realities: current practices of information difusion, in general, and in the scholarly arena, in particular, as well as information brokering and information sharing. Towards the concluding sections the focus will shift to the principal agents concerned with facilitating the communication of information, librarians and libraries, with the last few papers concentrating on their greatly changed roles in the curation and preservation of information. Opening with F. W. Lancaster’s more than a third of a century old, groundbreaking vision of an information-driven, paperless society (Chapter 25), which by now has certainly proven to be nothing less than prophetic, the question of the library’s future survival as a prime enabler of information mediation is immediately brought to the fore. As Arthur P. Young notes in his comprehensive review of Lancaster’s prediction and its (not invariably favourable) reception by the profession, presented next (Chapter 26), the library is seen in a deep decline, if not ordained for almost certain disappearance, but librarians may survive, indeed thrive, if they reconigure their missions and service orientations. We will take up this point again further on, but irst the next, research-based paper considers the topic of our interest here, the difusion of information in the digital era, as it is facilitated by the relatively recent mass adoption of social networks. Looking at the informationsharing behaviour observable on Facebook, Eytan Bakshy and his colleagues (Chapter 27) identify aggregate trends in the role played by social inluence in the dissemination of information. The next two papers move on to focus on the changing practices of information dissemination in the scholarly arena. First, Julie M. Hurd charts the migration of the scientiic communication system from print to digital media (Chapter 28). Ofering an updated model of the traditional system, which, capturing as it does a moving target, in point of fact does not necessarily relect a inalised situation, she examines its transformed processes as well as the altered roles and interactions of its main players, the scientistsauthors, publishers and librarians. Then Ian Rowlands and David Nicholas ofer a research-led exploration into the potential of open access publishing and institutional repositories to reform the scholarly communication system (Chapter 29). Having established that researchers are still a long way of from reaching a consensus on the likelihood of such developments taking place, with attitudes and opinions varying mainly by disciplinary culture but also by 4 I n t ro d u C t I o n t o V o lu m e I I PR OO F2 regional location, the authors warn against ‘one-size-its-all’ policy-making approaches to the problem. Reverting yet again to the present-day, ubiquitous virtual information environment, the next paper, by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, a chapter from their widely acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (Chapter 30), looks at one of the fast-evolving trends characterising present-day practices of information dissemination and mediation, the utilisation of autonomous agents, known as bots, for the purpose. These software programs, which incessantly roam the internet to catalogue its content, act as efective enough, if far from perfect, information brokers, helping as they do today’s informationhungry digital consumers to ‘ind needles of information in the web’s vast haystack’ (p. 37), to use the authors’ apt turn of phrase. Untangling the literature on the topic of information sharing in a digital world, a topic that has attracted quite some attention in the past few years, the next four papers examine the diferent aspects of information partnerships among people. To start with, Cross and his colleagues, in their study of people as information sources in a social and organisational context (Chapter 31), identify the informational beneits that people receive from other people and the characteristics of relationships that dictate to whom they turn for these beneits. Then the role of the ever-more popular social media as a platform for information sharing is considered. In a paper reporting on a major international survey among scholars (Chapter 32), David Nicholas, Ian Rowlands, and other members of the UK-based CIBER research group show that social media have found serious application in academe, too. Indeed, although traditional venues of disseminating research remain most valued, social media, too, are seen as important, at least as complementary channels, at all points of the research life cycle, from identifying research opportunities to disseminating indings at the end. Targeting another critical group of social media users, teenagers and young adults, in order to investigate their e-commerce information-sharing behaviours, Jansen and his colleagues note the varied levels of their soliciting information from social networking sites, as well as the varied levels of their acting on the information they obtain (Chapter 33). Finally, Carol Tenopir and her colleagues (Chapter 34) look at a more speciic aspect of information sharing, that of scientiic data, inding that with all the importance accorded to the practice, allowing as it does for veriication of research results and for basing on it additional research, the extent of data sharing is quite low; this, for a variety of reasons to do with logistics, but, just as much, with disciplinary and work culture-rooted and age-related practices. The next obvious step in exploring the dissemination component of the transmission of knowledge from its originator to its consumer is the look the next few papers proceed to take at the traditional intermediating agents facilitating the process, the information professionals and their libraries. Serving as the basis for understanding the mission of the information professional, 5 I n t ro d u C t I o n t o V o lu m e I I PR OO F2 Ortega y Gasset’s classic paper on the subject deines what a librarian must do in order to be a good librarian (Chapter 35). As the history of librarianship clearly shows, he contends, it is the signiicance of information in a given society that determines the librarian’s call, which is why, in the informationsaturated realities of the twentieth century, the librarian should go far beyond the mere administration of books to fulil the role of a ilter interposed between man and the torrent of books. Lester Asheim, in his insightful paper presented next (Chapter 36), takes Ortega y Gasset’s argument further by proposing that, as a logical extension and enhancement of the librarian’s ‘ilter’ role, the information professional should serve as an intermediator, whose mission is scanning, processing and selecting from the total domain of information that part of it which meets an individual’s needs. Thinking much along the same lines, Eti Herman and David Nicholas reexamine the mission of the information professional at a time when the torrent of information has long been exacerbated into an avalanche (Chapter 37). Noting that the truly vast amounts of information at people’s beck and call hardly present any problems, but their inefectual information consumption deinitely does, for, as a result, their myriad pressing information needs go unmet, they call upon information professionals to ensure that people’s information needs are handled efectively. This, directly, via the proicient planning and delivery of information provision, but also indirectly, by spreading professional thinking and practices to those who insist on sorting out their information needs on their own. Information professionals need, therefore, to reairm their professional vows with their customers: to connect and reach out in an era of disintermediation, disconnection and decoupling. Moving forward to examine how libraries are shaping up to fulil their mission in an era that sees profound upheavals in the information environment, Maurice B. Line ofers an especially perceptive appraisal of the transition libraries should and, courtesy of the novel technologies, can now make from take-it-or-leave-it, bulk services to the masses to tailor-made, needs-driven services (Chapter 38). After all, as he argues, it is better, not to say simpler, to design libraries around people rather than to redesign people to it libraries. Better, indeed, as well as very much in keeping with traditional library values, as the brief paper presented next (Chapter 39), in which David McMenemy discusses the ongoing relevance of Ranganathan’s teaching for librarians of the modern era, clearly demonstrates. Finally, in the paper concluding this section (Chapter 40), Kim Holmberg and his colleagues look at the state of the art concept of the library, ‘Library 2.0’. Identifying the seven building blocks of the phenomenon – interactivity, users, participation, libraries and library services, web and web 2.0, social aspects, and technology and tools – the authors deine Library 2.0 as the quintessence of a changed user–library interaction, made possible by the social aspects of today’s user-friendly, webbased services. 6 I n t ro d u C t I o n t o V o lu m e I I PR OO F2 In conclusion of this part we now turn to the vital need for ensuring the long-term viability and accessibility of information, as an obvious prerequisite of its communicability. Thus, the next two papers look at the curation and preservation of information in our digital era. First, Seamus Ross (Chapter 41) discusses the multifold theoretical, methodological and technological challenges of maintaining the semantic meaning of the digital object, its content and its provenance and authenticity, whilst also retaining its interrelatedness and the context of its creation and use. Then, Christoph Becker and Andreas Rauber consider the possible ways and means of addressing these challenges, delineating the decision criteria and inluence factors to be considered when choosing digital preservation solutions (Chapter 42). 7 PR OO F2