InfoMatters

Much of the ferment over libraries, information, technology and digital life springs from rigid divisions drawn between people, professions and purposes. In our discussions here in Texas on the future of our own program and our plans for the future, we have given serious thought to advancing discovery as the true purpose of the information field. In this framing we can envisage a role for curated collections, access mechanisms, technologies of storage, retrieval and presentation, human meaning-making, and records management. Rather than defining the field around old or new roles for its professional members, there is a real preference for conceiving information as being the fuel of learning, creativity and discovery, regardless of subject matter or application domain. When viewed this way, it makes no sense to think in terms of libraries versus computers, digital versus paper, catalog versus folksonomy, each is a component in the larger purpose of augmenting human capabilities.

I have spoken of this recently in several talks and the feedback has given me some belief that the study of discovery has generally been undervalued. There are few deep studies of the process and each domain has taken it’s own research methods as the model of how discovery occurs. Information, as a field, would serve a valuable purpose by offering a more unified understanding.

Information: A New Discipline for Accelerating Discovery
 
We live in an era characterized by information technologies powerful and cheap enough to be used anywhere and anytime. Massive amounts of data, once physically bound to a location, are now shared, freed from time and space constraints on use. The mechanisms of scholarly communication are being challenged by open access, self-publishing peer networks. The emerging cyber infrastructure will enable new forms of collaborative research and data analysis that cross disciplinary divides. Education is no longer tied to a classroom. Communities are no longer tied geographically. Resources are no longer only physical.
 
All disciplines are affected and it is resulting in the blurring and crossing of subject boundaries. This is not the same old story of progress – history offers us few lessons when the changes enabled by technologies of information are so all-powerful. This is a new Gutenberg era and like that earlier period, it will change the world quickly, permanently, and in ways that that we do not easily anticipate.
 
There is a vital lesson to grasp about these changes. Data is stored, but information is experienced. How we design, manage, and share information will affect the experiences of all members of our society. I believe the ultimate goal of information experiences is discovery. In so saying, this provides the basis for a new field of information studies that contributes insights and knowledge to the human and social processes of discovery.
 
Discovery can be formal and informal, significant and trivial, personal or shared. It is an experience for all, young or old, expert or novice, professional or amateur. Acts of discovery are life long, and in their most refined form are defining characteristics of our species.
 
The process of discovery requires the meeting of an enquiring mind with a world, real or virtual, present or represented. Libraries and collections, physical and virtual, provide rich representational spaces for discovery. Digital tools offer interfaces to information for visualization, manipulation, and analysis. The emerging cyber infrastructure unites people and practices with layers of technology and resources. There is no turning back. The field of information serves to facilitate the engagement of minds into acts of discovery through the gathering, organization and presentation of vast data sets, and the tools for exploration and innovation.
 
It is happening already. There are 1bn Internet users today. There will be 2bn by 2015. The Internet has changed society, spawned more than a trillion dollar impact on the global economy, and this is only the beginning. Despite popular images, Internet use is not just about email and Google. 40m Americans report having used the Internet to find scientific information, and more impressively, 80% of these state they have checked the quality of this information with other sources. The need for curation and stewardship has never been greater. 99.99% of all new data is born digital. The ability to store data in a tiny chip exceeds the capability of the Library of Congress to store paper equivalents. All professions involve digital technology use somewhere in the set of tasks they perform. We have witnessed in a decade the emergence of a new socio-technical infrastructure in which we routinely live and work, make purchases and perform services, learn and communicate, create and share, without pause or concern for distance. Those born in the last decade will never understand a world without the Internet. More than half of teenage users have created and shared digital materials. The longer life expectancy of people now anticipates extended or multiple career opportunities which will demand more fluid and individual educational opportunities as never before.
 
What lies ahead should be studied. It should not be left to business or technological forces alone but should be planned and shaped with human and social concerns at the forefront. It unites the arts and sciences, it involves design and creativity, and it is will require legal processes and economic insights to understand and to manage. Ultimately, we need to create a new field, one that can make sense of the data smog we live in, helping people to leverage meaning from information, be they scientists or citizens, adult s or children, rich or poor. This is the field of Information, and its mission is to enable, and even accelerate, discovery for the benefit of all.
 
A new field requires a new kind of school. And this is why we have schools of information.

Bill Aspray of IU’s School of Informatics provided the Schneider Distinguished Lecture 2007 at the School of Information here in Austin yesterday, providing a detailed overview of the status of internet studies as a professional field of enquiry in the academy. I don’t care for the term ‘internet studies’ but as he noted, think ‘informatics’ or ‘information studies’ when you hear the term and the rest of his analysis applies. The Daily Texan coverage highlights the curricular aspects of his talk but he spoke widely of the contested terrain we are witnessing in the intellectual and scholarly response to the social and technical phenomena surrounding the ‘net. What struck me clearly from his presentation was the rather confused manner in which universities are responding. The tension between people in each discipline slicing off their own ‘relevant’ concerns and those who want to create a new interdisciplinary field of enquiry is palpable. As Bill noted, interdisciplinary programs don’t tend to do well in most universities, which of course should make us wonder if disciplines take on the role of distinguishing themselves to the exclusion of asking and answering important research questions.

The sunday edition this week carried an interesting op-ed on Yahoo and co for their willingness to do whatever the Chinese government asks of them when it comes to denying privacy. The article, entitled Yahoo Betrays Free Speech represents a long-overdue comment from the mainstream media on the hold US information companies to account for participation in the repression of freedom of speech. As the author notes:

Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent. The bill would at least give American companies a solid reason to decline requests for data, but the big Internet companies do not support it. That shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world.

Plus ca change?