Idea Transcript
A conceptual framework for information management: formation of a discipline
Michael Robert Middleton BSc
University of Western Australia
MScSoc, Dip Lib, GradDip
University of New South Wales
GradCertEd(HigherEd)
Queensland University of Technology
Supervisors: Associate Professor Christine Bruce Professor Guy Gable
Information Research Program, Faculty of Information Technology
Queensland University of Technology
A thesis by publication submitted in partial requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006
Keywords Information management; discipline formation; information services; case studies; bibliographic databases; Australia.
Conceptual framework for information management
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Note on layout/formatting
This work incorporates material from a number of different publications each with different layout and editorial policies. They have been brought together with the same font, page layout and heading formats for consistency of presentation. Nevertheless there remain formatting particularities in this work as follows:
•
In some of the chapters there are internal references to chapter and section numbers from the publications themselves that have been maintained, even though numbering of internal sections had been removed for consistency of text.
•
Figure and table numbering has been retained as per the individual publications rather than using renumbering for the dissertation as a whole.
•
End noting from original publications has been converted to footnoting in order to retain integrity of footnotes with each publication.
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Although references have been retained in some of the included publications according to the format required by that publication, they are also included with all other references from this work in a consolidated list at the end.
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English spelling may vary according to place of publication.
•
Colour from the drafts of publications, though not retained in any of the published versions, has been used here to assist interpretation of inclusions.
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Abstract
The aim of the research was to investigate the formation of the information management discipline, propose a framework by which it is presently understood, and test that framework within a particular area of application, namely the provision of scientific and technological information (STI) services. The work is presented as a PhD by Publication which comprises a narrative that encompasses the series of published papers, and includes excerpts from the book written to illustrate the province of the discipline. In thee book the disciplinary context is detailed and exemplified based upon information management domains. The book consolidates information management principles within a framework defined by these operational, analytical and administrative domains. It was created by a redaction of prior epistemological proposals; an analysis of the understanding of practice that has been shaped by professional, institutional and information science influences; and demonstration of practice within the domain framework. The disciplinary framework was then used in a series of STI case studies where it was found to provide an effective description of information management. Together, the book and subsequent case studies provided illustration of the principles utilised in information management and the way that they are practiced within different domains, along with an explanation of the manner in which the information management discipline has been formed. These should assist with direction of future research and scholarship particularly with respect to factors relevant to information services and indicators for their successful application in future. It is anticipated that this generalised description of the practices across the range of interpretations of information management should enable practicing information professionals to appreciate the relationship of their own work to disciplines that are converging towards similar purpose, such as through a clearer indication of the extent to which technical and management standards may be applied, and performance analysis undertaken. Complementary outcomes that were achieved during the course of the work were: a comparative analysis of thesauri in the information field which shows that in this field,
Conceptual framework for information management (Abstract)
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the ways that information professionals represent themselves remains unreconciled; an historical examination of Australian STI services that provides pointers to their effective continuation; and a reconsideration of the relationship between librarianship and information management. The work is presented as a compilation of papers that comprise firstly extracts from the book to exemplify its consolidation of information management principles, then a number of published and submitted papers that examine how principles have been applied in practice. This is in the context of six case studies of Australian STI services including interviews with creators and developers, and analysis of historical information.
Conceptual framework for information management (Abstract)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
KEYWORDS ................................................................................................................................................ I NOTE ON LAYOUT/FORMATTING............................................................................................................... II ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................ III TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS ...................................................................................................................... VII LIST OF PUBLICATIONS........................................................................................................................... VIII STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP ................................................................................................... X ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................ XI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH ................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Preamble .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Research problem ................................................................................................................ 2 1.3. Research context .................................................................................................................. 3 1.4. Aim and objectives of the study............................................................................................ 6 1.5. Method.................................................................................................................................. 8 1.6. Research progress.............................................................................................................. 11 1.7. Research contributions ...................................................................................................... 18
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................... 21 2.
LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................................................... 21 2.1. Discipline formation........................................................................................................... 21 2.2. Information in organisations.............................................................................................. 24 2.3. Information professions...................................................................................................... 28 2.3.1. 2.3.2.
2.4. 2.4.1. 2.4.2.
2.5. 2.6. 2.7.
Defining the information professions........................................................................................... 30 Education for the professions ....................................................................................................... 33
Information science ............................................................................................................ 36 Definitions of information............................................................................................................ 36 Elements of information science .................................................................................................. 39
Information management as practice................................................................................. 43 Information management as discipline .............................................................................. 47 Summary and focus of study............................................................................................... 49
CHAPTER 3: EXPRESSING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES ........................ 51 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6.
Information management Book preliminaries ................................................................... 51 Information management Book chapter: ‘Introduction’.................................................... 54 Information management Book chapter: ‘Information in organisations’ excerpt............. 75 Information management Book chapter: Operational domain.......................................... 85 Information management Book chapter: Analytical domain........................................... 102 Information management Book chapter: Administrative domain.................................... 128
CHAPTER 4: TERMINOLOGY USED BY INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS .................... 137 4.1.
Journal article: Vocabulary use study ............................................................................. 137
CHAPTER 5: HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF STI SERVICES ........................................................ 155 5.1. 5.2.
Book chapter: Drops in the ocean: the development of … STI in Australia.................... 155 Journal article: Australian STI services history and development.................................. 171
CHAPTER 6: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT DISCIPLINE FORMATION IN STI .......... 201 6.1. 6.2.
Journal article: single case study IM and STI services.................................................... 201 Journal article: multiple case study of STI services discipline formation....................... 225
CHAPTER 7: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK.............................................. 253 7.1.
Journal article: Development of IM disciplinary framework .......................................... 253
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CHAPTER 8: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN LIBRARY CONTEXT ............................ 281 8.1.
Book chapter: IM discipline and library development..................................................... 281
CHAPTER 9: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS........................................................................ 317 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5. 9.6.
Achievements of research program ................................................................................. 317 Methodological critique................................................................................................... 320 Problems encountered...................................................................................................... 321 Limitations........................................................................................................................ 322 Further research directions ............................................................................................. 322 Significance and conclusion ............................................................................................ 324
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................ 327
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Table of illustrations Figure title
Thesis section
Figure number
Page
(parent document)
Outline of research process Examples of information organisation Information management tasks associated with records Contemporary information management applications Levels of information management Enterprise responsibility for information Environmental scanning Scanning modes Organising animals Taxonomic classification for koala Extract from 1997 U.S. NAICS Codes and Titles Records and information management classification scheme for filing Extract from U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration classification scheme for … LC Classification Scheme outline of main classes Extract from LC Classification outline Class J Extract from Dutch Electronic Subject Service site using classified arrangement IRDS evaluation schema Checklist for HCI evaluation Website evaluation Information policy components Planning matrix for information policy implementation ENGINE record Example of AESIS record AESIS overall functional format Information management framework
Chapter 1 Chapter 3.2 Chapter 3.2
1.1 1.1 1.2
9 57 61
Chapter 3.2 Chapter 3.2 Chapter 3.3 Chapter 3.3 Chapter 3.3 Chapter 3.4 Chapter 3.4 Chapter 3.4 Chapter 3.4
1.3 1.4 4.3 4.4 4.5 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4
68 72 77 80 81 90 91 92 93
Chapter 3.4
10.5
94
Chapter 3.4 Chapter 3.4 Chapter 3.4
10.6 10.7 10.8
94 96 101
Chapter 3.5 Chapter 3.5 Chapter 3.5 Chapter 3.6 Chapter 3.6
18.1 18.2 18.3 20.5 20.6
114 126 127 131 132
Chapter 5.2 Chapter 6.1 Chapter 6.1 Chapter 9.5
1 1 2 9.1
190 215 217 323
Table title
Thesis section
Table number
Page
(parent document)
Example findings on the ability of scientists to find information Australian STI databases Record counts by publication year ATRI document types Informit elements for ATRI and ANSTI Database information management Australian STI databases AESIS milestones Extract from AGLS reference description of NAA Website evaluation criteria based upon FAVORS Corporate policy constituents
Conceptual framework for information management
Chapter 5.1
1
161
Chapter 5.2 Chapter 5.2 Chapter 5.2 Chapter 5.2 Chapter 6.1 Chapter 6.1 Chapter 6.1 Chapter 8.1 Chapter 8.1 Chapter 8.1
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 13.1 13.2 13.3
185 187 190 194 209 211 217 293 304 311
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List of publications Middleton, M.
2002
Information management: a consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, Australia: Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies. [ISBN 1-876938-36-6].
Middleton, M.
2004
Drops in the ocean: the development of scientific and technological information services in Australia. In M.E. Bowden & W.B. Rayward (Eds.), The history and heritage of scientific and technological information systems. Medford, NJ, USA: Information Today. [ISBN 1-57387-229-6]. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00000689/
Middleton, M.
2004
The way that information professionals describe their own discipline: a comparison of thesaurus descriptors. New Library World 105(11): 429-435. [ISSN: 0307-4803]. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00000614/
Middleton, M.
2005
Discipline formation in information management: case study of scientific and technological information services. Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology 2: 543-558. [ISSN 1547-5840]. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00001433
Middleton, M.
2006
Scientific and technological information services in Australia. I. History and development. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 37(2): [ISSN 0004-8623]. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00004722/
Middleton, M.
2006
Scientific and technological information services in Australia. II.
in press
Discipline formation in information management. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 37(3) [ISSN 0004-8623].
Conceptual framework for information management
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Middleton, M.
in press
A framework for information management: using case studies to test application International Journal of Information Management [ISSN 0268-4012]
Middleton, M.
in press
Beyond the corporate library: information management in organisations. In S Ferguson (Ed.), Libraries in the twentyfirst century: Charting future developments in library and information services
During the course of the work, I contributed to a number of other publications that drew upon the research. Some are listed here. Their content is excluded from the dissertation, as they are not specific to the progression of the research programme.
Asprey, L., &
2003
Integrative document and content management: strategies for
Middleton, M.
exploiting enterprise knowledge. Hershey, PA, USA: Idea Group. [ISBN 1-59140-055-4(h/c); eISBN 1-59140-068-6].
Redlich, L.,
2006
Natural resource information management at state government
Gersekowski, P., &
level.
In
A.-V.
Anttiroiko
&
M.
Mälkiä
(Eds.),
Middleton, M.
Encyclopedia of digital government (Vol. III, pp. 12261234) Hershey, USA: Idea Group Reference. [ISBN 1-59140-789-3].
Asprey, L. &
2005
Integrative document and content management solutions. In M
Middleton, M.
Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Encyclopedia of information science and technology volume I-V (pp. 1573-1578). Hershey, USA: Idea Group Reference. [ISBN 1-59140-553-X; eISBN 1-59140-794-X].
Conceptual framework for information management
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Statement of original authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except by m, and where due reference is made.
Signature: ___________________________
Date: _______________________________
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Acknowledgements
During the period of this study, I was particularly grateful to receive support from: •
My supervisors: Associate Professor Christine Bruce and Professor Guy Gable.
•
QUT for providing the environment in which the whole thing was made possible.
•
My doctoral colleagues for their support and encouragement during the research process.
•
My wife and family.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
1
Introduction to the research This work is a compilation of papers that have been published or accepted for
publication on topics associated with discipline formation in information management. It is presented as a PhD by Publication which comprises a narrative that encompasses the series of published papers, and includes excerpts from the book written to illustrate the province and practice of the discipline. The introductory Chapter includes a description of the area of investigation and explanation of the aims and objectives of the study. It also provides an account of the research progress that has led to the various extracts and papers that are incorporated.
1.1.
Preamble ‘Management’ and ‘information’ are two commonly used words with many
shades of understanding. The shades become shadows when the words are brought together as ‘information management’, where interpretation is subject to a range of interests and contexts. Everyone manages information to some extent personally. When information is to be managed corporately, the perspective from which it is approached varies considerably according to the background of different professions whose orientation may for example be behavioural, technological, managerial, or educational. Yet between these groups, it seems reasonable to assume a shared understanding of the separation between the way information is ultimately used (such as in learning or decision making), and the way that it is organised and processed to be available for use. Such understanding may be given substance as a requirement for intermediation between information processing systems and their users. This may be in the form of direct intercession by assistance to information users who are unfamiliar with the information architecture of the repositories from which they seek information. On the other hand, it may be by shaping of systems to facilitate use through information procedures such as requirements analysis, interface design, classification, and application of meta-information, each of which is directed at anticipating user needs.
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Some doomsayers in the information professions have at times foreseen ‘disintermediation’ because end users of information can access it directly (the ‘googling effect’). However, such concerns seem to pay insufficient attention to ongoing imperatives for identification, preparation, organisation and sifting of pertinent information as business, community, research and educational needs evolve. To use the term ‘information professions’ implies that there are associations of people who subscribe to the tenets that identify a profession, for example: working within the boundaries of an agreed body of knowledge, generally adhering to underlying models and principles, promulgating appropriate curricula for professional entry, stipulating best practice for applying principles, and providing guidance for society in general (or the lay public) in their area of specialisation. This does happen in the subject area of information, but the fact that there are multiple professions rather than an ‘information profession’ indicates that there continues to be a spectrum of understanding of what is actually professed. This is in influenced by the contexts in which the professionals work such as the corporate environment
(business,
education,
community),
the
types
of
repositories
(recordkeeping, libraries, museums, archives), and the form of media (film, books, digital). This work investigates the respects in which there is accord about a common conceptual framework, and the manner in which a discipline has been formed by practice. It does this by an extensive review of the literature which is used to propose a consolidated view of information management that is expressed in terms of domains. The view is then tested by case studies of a particular information management environment.
1.2.
Research problem The challenge of the research is to provide a way in which information
management may be expressed in terms of a detailed disciplinary framework, understood in terms of practical application.
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It requires a review and re-appraisal of existing expression of information management principles, representation of these in a consolidated way, and a testing of the resulting the conceptualisation against practice.
1.3.
Research context The definition of discipline is fertile ground, repeatedly re-ploughed by scholars.
They are aided in their ruminations by the many dictionary definitions. For example the Oxford English Dictionary (OED online, 2004) finds numerous etymological pathways and nuances since the 14th Century. The one most pertinent to this work seems to have been used by Chaucer in 1386: “This disciplyne and this crafty science” interpreted among other things as a branch of instruction or education, or a department of learning or knowledge. Other definitions speak of system or method for maintenance of order, or system of rules of conduct. The OED is similarly varied with its definitions of profession. Probably the most pertinent for the purposes of this work has been with us since the sixteenth century: a vocation in which a professed knowledge of some department of learning or science is used in its application to the affairs of others or in the practice of an art founded upon it. These definitions should be placed in a more contemporary context – one in which scholarship interests itself in the formation (and extinction) of professions, and how they establish their mores using an agreed knowledge base - that is, the discipline. Reese (1995) has said that “one of the principles in discipline formation is to privilege certain classes of evidence as the basis of research and to advance theory that specifies the unique character of the nature of change within the particular domain (that) the discipline privileges”. He was writing in a humanities context. Still, this and some other assertions of his relating to what might be termed the tribal nature, or inclusiveness of those disciplines, may be applied more generally to disciplines. For example he felt that once established, a discipline functions as a quasi-corporate voice to deflect criticism from outside its borders and to deflate all claims to the truth that do not win communal support.
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An investigation of those scholars who interest themselves in discipline formation leads to embodying them in three groups:
•
Philosophers who have concerned themselves with the history of ideas. When they particularly concern themselves with adherence by groups to models of thinking or paradigms, some like Kuhn (1977) look specially at identifying the boundaries between scientific disciplines.
•
Sociologists who concern themselves with group relationships and their manifestations such as power and education.
•
Authorities within particular disciplines who develop an interest in how their own discipline has developed, and try to articulate the historical development and boundaries often using advocacy or rhetoric.
An example of an approach that seems to straddle the second and third of these categories is that of Baehr (2002). He is a sociologist examining the “precarious identity” of sociology. He does so by an analysis of three concepts: founders, classics and canons, so is essentially undertaking an analysis of influential literature (“classic texts”). Although he does include one institutional case study, the institution in question is itself a publication – a journal representing the outpouring of a school of thought. A vastly different analysis in a very different field, architecture, is undertaken by the academic architect Pai (2002) based upon an MIT thesis. He tries to demonstrate how this discipline has formed into what he calls a discursive practice. He does so by reference to and illustration from a great deal of writing and graphics from recent years. Again, there is considerable critical analysis of text. Much work on discipline formation has been undertaken by investigation of academic disciplinary boundaries, and by trying to determine what it is that leads to methods employed, models accepted and principles followed. Exploration of the way that the disciplines have been applied in the work place has been carried out for many reasons including task definition for workplace employment, establishment of
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
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competencies or training programs, or identification of knowledge and skills for inclusion in curriculum development. Sociologists have also been interested in how the disciplines are applied as professions. The work of Abbott (1988) is particularly pertinent since it includes a case study of the information professions which he differentiates as qualitative and quantitative, before going on to examine what he envisages as forthcoming coalescence to a combined jurisdiction. This jurisdictional claim is not given a label, but it could reasonably be information management. However, even with his work there do not appear to have been particular attempts to associate a theoretical disciplinary framework with workplace applications, at least in the area of information management. Recent specific attempts to characterise information management as a discipline have been made by Rowley (1998; 1999), in which she makes some attempt to associate principles and practice. Her proposals are situated in many years of debate by others on what comprises the defining knowledge of the field. This debate has been tackled from a number of viewpoints that include:
•
Provision of precise contextual definitions for information and the way it is used in organisational settings.
•
Establishing a science of information that enunciates principles for information description, organisation and retrieval of information in its various forms along with metrics for the way it is used.
•
Articulation of research agendas that have included analysis of information valuation, informetrics, and situational information seeking behaviour.
•
Analysis of the workforce that specialises in handling information and determining what is done by different participants.
•
Developing principles that guide use of information as a resource.
•
Establishing curricula for those who are entering information professions.
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Each of these pathways has contributed to the creation of a broad understanding that information must be managed in different ways according to context, and that this management owes its effectiveness to a coherent frame of knowledge. However, it is only in very recent years that scholars have spoken in terms of formation of an information management discipline. It remains problematical to do so since there are many contributing disciplines, and it is difficult to identify a core that is accepted by all adherents. The discipline formation work that has been done has been undertaken historiographically as in other areas of discipline formation, but there has yet to be significant examination of what is conceived to be the discipline in relation to what is engaged in by its practicing professionals. Wilson has been active in characterising the discipline. He considers that if information management is to have a continuing role in organisational performance, then its function must become accepted as a key part of organisational structures. It must also be associated with a coherent educational curriculum and a research agenda (Wilson, 2003). Another way of putting this might be that an agreed paradigm is still to be accepted. This situation in the sciences has been described by Kuhn (1977) as a pre-paradigmatic disciplinary grouping. There is yet to be agreement on the constellation of ideas and techniques, beliefs and values that define the shared commitments of a group such as agreed symbolic generalisations, models and exemplars. Pluralism of models is unexceptional in the social sciences, information management included - it is yet to have stabilised at a mature agreed form. My premise is that I can build upon literature to date and show that practice has indeed been based upon a defining and relatively stable set of principles. In this way I hope to give better definition to the field, which in turn can be advanced through research and scholarship.
1.4.
Aim and objectives of the study The aim of the study was to advance understanding of information management.
This was approached with reference in particular to its practice by professionals (though building upon conceptualisation by scholars), within the framework of a discipline.
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The objectives at the outset were therefore to:
•
Articulate a conceptual framework that characterises the discipline and how its principles are applied in practice.
•
Report on evidence for application of this framework in the development of scientific and technological information (STI) services.
•
Examine the manner in which information professionals carry out the activities described in the conceptual framework.
Although the individual publications resulting are the result of different aspects of enquiry, from an overall viewpoint the research is addressing the following questions:
•
Can a discipline area for information management be articulated?
•
Is it possible to harmonise information management concepts across competing disciplines?
•
Has such a discipline been employed in the establishment of computer-based information services?
•
Do the areas of agreement among practitioners constitute a discipline formation?
During the course of the work, it was found that several by-products could also be produced as part of the research process. These were the result of tangential subquestions:
•
What vocabulary is used by people who practice information management in order to describe themselves? This led to an analysis of the vocabularies used in bibliographic databases to describe information professionals.
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
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•
Has the current maintenance of Australian STI services anything to learn from their historical development? This led to an historical overview and commentary on current development that was additional to the information management analysis in the case studies.
•
Is there a union of principles between librarianship and information management? This led to a critique of the relationship between information management and librarianship.
1.5.
Method The method for achieving these objectives was through a series of publications
arising from the steps summarised in the accompanying Figure 1.1. The method entailed:
•
Creation of a book that proposes a disciplinary framework by consolidation and redaction of concepts and principles expressed in the literature.
•
Investigation of a discrete group of services that were established in Australia during the 1970s which may prove to be exemplars of applications of such a disciplinary framework.
•
Semi-structured interviews of current professionals in information management, along the lines of earlier disciplinary studies in other fields, to determine what they consider to be the boundaries.
The methodological approach was mixed. As with other discipline formation studies, the book was produced using a historiographic approach that involved reviewing the literature on the subject, then articulating a disciplinary framework by consolidating principles espoused within the literature, and illustrating these with examples of application. Attention was also paid to codes of professional associations when the framework was constructed. The methods used in the individual papers pursuant to the book are described in more detail in each of the papers, however in brief they comprised:
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
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Define approach
Establish research context
Establish research questions
Examine relevant disciplines
Establish discipline context
Literature review
Chapter 3 Chapter 3 (IM book) Chapter 3 (IM book) Chapter 3 (IM book)
Compare domains and practice
Review research questions
Chapter 4 (NLW)
(IM book)
Review research context
Establish protocol
Chapter 5 First STI case
(STI history) Chapter 5 STI history
Chapter 6 (discipline)
Repeat cases STI services
Chapter 6
Disciplinary framework comparison
(framework)
(discipline)
Chapter 7
) IM and library environment
Chapter 8 (libraries)
Figure 1.1: Outline of research process
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
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•
A comparative analysis of controlled vocabularies applied to describe bibliographic databases was used for the paper dealing with how information professionals describe themselves.
•
A multiple case study approach with the unit of analysis being an STI service was used for the papers that investigated history, characteristics and discipline formation of services employing information management. Six services were investigated using a case study protocol framed by the disciplinary approach previously outlined in the book. Study of the services was carried out by means of documented literature and internal reports about the services, exploration of the databases produced by the services, historical research in archives of committees and departments involved in service development, and interviews. Interviews for the cases were undertaken in two ways:
-
as formal structured face-to-face interviews with seven of the individuals involved in initial development of the services. These were recorded and transcribed to permit scrutiny using text analysis software, and were complemented by multiple follow-up telephone calls for clarification.
-
as informal unstructured interviews with twenty-two individuals principally involved in current operation of services. These were mainly undertaken as telephone conversations to clarify matters arising from structured interviews, or from database investigations.
•
The last two papers are critiques evolving from a comparison of research findings with in the first case a specific framework paper on the information management discipline, and in the second case, current librarianship literature.
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
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1.6.
Research progress The initial stage of the work comprised an extensive literature review in order to
identify approaches to investigation of discipline formation, and in order to consider works that had endeavoured to explicate the concepts and practice of information management. Chapter 2 is a literature review that provides a scope for the field and identifies the research focus. It comprises the initial literature review, along with reference to further relevant material that has been published while the research was underway. The second (and major) stage of the research is a book that synthesises and consolidates information principles and practice, thereby proposing a disciplinary framework. The book is developed from the initial literature review. However, it derives from a much more extensive bibliography that is used to substantiate the framework embodied in the book’s composition. This structure is based upon the domains of analysis proposed by Diener (1992), and uses these to frame many examples of information management practice together with contributory influences that have shaped its understanding. The book was published as:
Middleton, M. (2002) Information management: a consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy. CSU Centre for Information Studies.
Chapter 3 contains extracts from this book in order to give an overall impression of its composition and content. They are as follows:
•
Chapter 3.2 reproduces the introductory Chapter 1 from the book in full. The purpose for including this is to provide some historical context for the discipline, summarise the forerunners to the disciplinary setting, and introduce the domains of analysis that are used to structure the study.
•
Chapter 3.3 is an extract from Chapter 4 on Information and Organisations in Part A of the book. It is included in order to provide a sample of one of the contributory influences to information management
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
11
practice. In this case the extract includes sections on information responsibilities and on environmental scanning.
The rest of the book is composed of 3 parts to illustrate operational, analytical and administrative domains of information management. An extract from one chapter from each of these parts is provided to impart the flavour of the analysis:
•
Chapter 3.4 is an extract from Part B of the book which deals with operational information management. This part of the book is structured to illustrate information procedures undertaken at stages in an information life cycle from creation to disposal. At each stage of this cycle information management involves working with information about information (metainformation or metadata). The stages include an information organisation stage, and this is differentiated as organising by agent (information about information carriers) or content (subject matter of information carried). In each case there are devices for controlling the description of the information, and the example being introduced with respect to subject matter organisation is that of classification from Chapter 10.
•
Chapter 3.5 is an extract from Part C of the book which deals with analytical information management. Systems management is sometimes differentiated into operational, tactical and strategic management. However the analytical domain proposed by Diener does not correspond to tactical level. Instead it is about the way information needs are determined and information sources systems and services are identified, developed and evaluated. The extract comes from the book Chapter 18.1 where a number of approaches to evaluation of information operations are introduced.
•
Chapter 3.6 is an extract from Part D of the book which deals with administrative information management and in this example from Chapter 20.3 illustrates elements of corporate information policy, and
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction)
12
then looks at so-called organisational learning as an constituent of corporate information policy.
The book as a whole provides a contribution to research by introducing a detailed disciplinary framework for information management in a way that takes into account practice in a variety of contexts. It does this using reference to prior literature and research, working examples and professional tenets, so that information principles and practice are consolidated in one work. Both the structure and content of the book are used to support the disciplinary framework that is put forward. The structure is used to illustrate in successive parts the influences on development of information management, and the different domains of practice. Within each of these parts, chapters give details of different applications and principles. For example the operational domain is explained with reference to a life cycle model of information, so that chapters in turn examine practice at different life cycle stages.
Chapter 4 of the thesis arose from the procedures being used to undertake the database searching that assisted the literature review. It was found that there was considerable variance between databases in describing the roles of people carrying out information work. Therefore a formal analysis was undertaken of the controlled vocabularies being used in the most relevant databases and a comparison was made of them. The paper draws attention to the widely divergent thesaurus nomenclature used to denote the information professions. It was accepted for publication as:
Middleton, M. (2004) The way that information professionals describe their own discipline: a comparison of thesaurus descriptors. New Library World 105(11): 429-435.
The paper provided a contribution to research by analysing differences in terminology in order to illustrate inconsistencies between a number of the main tools
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that are in use for indexing. A more consistent approach to disciplinary nomenclature is suggested with reference to existing standards for controlled vocabulary maintenance. The extent to which the terminology of a discipline is consistent provides an indication of how well-formed the discipline is, so this is an indication that practice is as yet some way from arriving at a shared paradigm. The disciplinary framework proposed in the book is then used as a means for analysing some specific information services. The cases chosen were those that have been developed to support STI in Australia. They were selected as they form a relatively discrete group of services that may be expected to exemplify many of the elements of information management described in the book. One specific service, AESIS, was examined in detail as a test case, and this was then complemented by investigation of several other services. From a publication viewpoint, it was found desirable to differentiate papers into those whose orientation was primarily historical with description of the developing characteristics of the services, as opposed to those where the emphasis is upon examining the services as exemplars of information management discipline formation. Chapter 5 includes two papers whose focus is historical. • Chapter 5.1 arose from the AESIS case and includes material dealing with the strategic and political influences on development. The paper arose from a presentation at an international conference that reviewed the development of STI services. A subsequent book was published that included revisions of the papers dealing with the services, and emphasising influences on historical development. It included work on the Australian context, as described thus:
Middleton, M. (2004). Drops in the ocean: the development of scientific and technological information services in Australia. In W.B. Rayward & M.E. Bowden (Eds.), The history and heritage of scientific and technological information systems (pp. 353-360). Medford, NJ, USA: InfoToday for American Society for Information Science and Technology and Chemical Heritage Foundation.
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• Chapter 5.2 is a second paper with emphasis on history and characteristics that encompasses each of the STI cases investigated. It is a companion piece to the discipline formation paper in Chapter 6. The two papers have been accepted for publication, and the first is to appear as:
Middleton, M. (2006) Scientific and technological information services in Australia. I. History and development. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 37(2): 111-135.
Together, these two papers contribute to the research by provision of a detailed descriptive analysis of the development and characteristics of the major Australian STI services. They provide a historical overview, review strategic and political influences, and lead to propositions about their continuing maintenance and development. The first of the two papers was also able to provide an Australian perspective within the framework of international development. The coverage of Australian literature by such services has been developed since the 1970s, but as always been subject to constraints imposed by the public policy environment, by resourcing, and by technical application. By analysing this development, these papers lead to proposals for improving metadata application, for complementing international services, for provision of citation linking and for association with full text material. Together, the papers complement the two papers in Chapter 6.
Chapter 6 comprises publications arising from examination of the same services but with emphasis on information management discipline. It includes two publications:
• Chapter 6.1 focuses on the case study of AESIS, and was published as:
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Middleton, M. (2005) Discipline formation in information management: case study of scientific and technological information services. Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology 2: 543-558.
• Chapter 6.2 is the case study discipline formation paper that consolidates examination of all six cases in the discipline formation context, and which complements the paper of Chapter 5.2. It has been accepted for publication as:
Middleton, M. (2006) Scientific and technological information services in Australia. II. Discipline formation in information management. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 37(3)
Together these papers suggest that the disciplinary framework espoused in the information management book is appropriate for describing the features of information management practiced in such situations. They do this by consideration of the cases with respect to administrative, analytical and operational aspects, and find that these are appropriate domains within which to consider information management practice. The work also adds to the case study literature of information management in a novel manner by undertaking analysis with reference to the framework of an information management disciplinary model. This points the way to using such a model for further case studies which are needed for the discipline. Although there have been many descriptions of the scope of information management, attempts to place it within a disciplinary framework have been relatively few. Among the more developed of these has been the work by Rowley (1998; 1999). Chapter 7 uses the STI case material to evaluate how information management practiced with the STI services may be applied in the context of the framework proposed by Rowley for information management. It suggests amalgamation of her framework with the one developed in the book. It has been accepted for publication and is ‘in press’ as follows:
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Middleton, M. (2006, in press) A framework for information management: using case studies to test application. International Journal of Information Management
This work provides a research contribution by carrying out a critique of an earlier framework proposed for the information management discipline, and proposing modifications to that framework based upon the preceding STI case studies, which in turn draw upon the organisation of, and examples in, the book. It therefore enhances the conceptual framework for the discipline of information management, provides for adaptation of a model within which the field may be understood, and within which practice cases may be interpreted. These may in turn contribute to disciplinary formation by improving definition of the professional and providing pointers to curriculum development. During the course of the research, I was offered the opportunity to contribute a chapter to a publication on future development in library and information services, the idea being to contrast perceptions of information management with information handling practiced within the librarianship profession. Chapter 8 is the result of re-evaluating the role of information management within organisations in the context of the changing institutional role of libraries. The paper takes the opportunity to use the defined disciplinary scope of information management in order to contrast it with information management applied in the library context. It has been accepted for publication and is now undergoing final review before appearing as:
Middleton, M. (2007, in press) Beyond the corporate library: information management in organisations. In S Ferguson (Ed.), Libraries in the twenty-first century: Charting future developments in library and information services.
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Therefore the combined earlier research contributions with respect to disciplinary studies have been able to be utilised to articulate the relationship between librarianship and information management. This places information management within a broader perspective establishing its practicality with respect to information acquisition, information organisation, current awareness, information resource evaluation and quality control, requirements analysis, preservation and information policy in contexts other than libraries. Chapter 9 is the concluding discussion that reviews and summarises the content and significance of the various papers, discusses difficulties with interpretation, and suggests avenues for further work. It suggests that the work succeeds in presenting a disciplinary framework for information management, and showing that this framework is an effective representation of the discipline in a bibliographic information services environment.
1.7.
Research contributions To summarise then, the research contributions within the publication framework
are:
•
An explanation of the principles utilised in information management and the way that they are practiced within different domains.
•
An explanation of the manner in which the information management discipline has been formed that should provide direction for future research and scholarship.
•
An analysis of the information management factors important for the development of information services and indicators for their successful application in future.
•
A description of the extent to which the practices across the range of interpretations of information management can be given common expression, so that practicing information professionals can appreciate the relationship of their own work to disciplines that are converging towards similar purpose.
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•
A clearer indication of the extent to which technical and management standards may be applied and performance analysis undertaken.
These were enhanced by the outcomes detailed in Chapters 4, 7, and 8 which arose as additional opportunities in the course of the research, namely:
•
Analysis of controlled vocabularies used in databases that describe the information management field, which shows how employment as information professionals is not consistently described, and suggests approaches for reconciling this.
•
An examination of Australian STI services in terms of historical development that provides pointers to their effective continuation.
•
A critique of the relationship between librarianship and information management that provides guidance on their differentiation.
The relationship to the most relevant published research in this field is described in the following literature review.
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Chapter 2: Literature review
2.
Literature Review The review begins with a brief consideration of discipline formation (2.1) in
general. It then concentrates upon understanding of information management as an undertaking. This is carried out by examining various aspects of information management literature that have had bearing on discipline formation. These aspects are introduced under the following headings: information in organisations (2.2), associations of information professions (2.3), and information science (2.4). There is then a section specifically on information management as practice (2.5) that reviews how the scope of information management has itself been articulated, followed by information management as a discipline (2.6) to consider how discipline formation in the field has been explicitly addressed up to now. This leads to a conclusion that comprises a summary and focus (2.7) of the study.
2.1.
Discipline formation What is a discipline? This question has been repeatedly revisited as professions
try to come to terms with whatever corpus of knowledge that concerns them. However it is of concern also to educators who may find it useful to differentiate disciplines when developing curriculum practice. For example King and Brownell (1966, pp. 67-98) canvas a variety of approaches. They successively look at a discipline’s characteristics alternatively as a community, as an expression of human imagination, as an intellectual domain, as a tradition with a history, as a mode of inquiry (which they term ‘a syntactical structure’), as a conceptual structure, as a specialised language, as a heritage of literature, as a valuative and effective stance in which aesthetic qualities are stressed, and as an instructive community. This thesis does not presume to investigate each of these characteristics in detail, however they each inform the line of inquiry to some extent. For the purposes of this review, a discipline is defined as a branch of knowledge subject to systematic academic study and application. This definition is a synthesis of
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three of the many definitions provided in OED online (2004). A discipline makes use of a developing documented body of knowledge including explanatory models and abstractions, and suggests ways in which that knowledge may be applied. The systematic study is undertaken using scholarship, reflection, and research methods sanctioned by the prevailing community of scholars. Application in the prevailing practice is undertaken according to established principles determined by the scholarship. This practice may be carried out by a profession which in general terms has been characterised by Metzger (1975), as a group that possesses and draws on a store of knowledge that is more than ordinary, has a theoretical and intellectual grasp that is different from a technician’s practice, applies theoretical and intellectual knowledge to solving human and social problems, strives to add and improve its body of knowledge through research, passes on the body of knowledge to novice generations for the most part in a university setting, and is imbued with an altruistic spirit. So a profession would seem to be the group that carries out the practice of a discipline. Some sociologists such as Macdonald, referring to the work of Foucault and Larsen, see discipline having a wider scope in meaning than profession (Macdonald, 1995, p.25), principally so that it is not confined to practice. However in this work, I’ll adopt the emphasis of Larsen (2005) on a profession as a disciplinary culture. Therefore, I infer that the knowledge of a discipline is applied and formalised by a profession through:
•
Grouping in an association that has membership rules for inclusion by qualification.
•
Acceptance of an underlying knowledge base that is tested, and which evolves through research.
•
Pronouncing principles for the application of disciplinary knowledge, in the form of provision of services to society.
•
Articulating operational and ethical standards.
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•
Working as an occupational group with special skills that are used by selfless observance of tenets instituted by fellow adherents – these tenets perhaps being called ethical or professional guidelines.
•
Establishing guidelines for the preparation of those entering the profession in the form of a curriculum based upon the body of knowledge.
Further, Abbott, has advanced abstraction as a concept that helps to differentiate professions from occupations – ‘only a knowledge system governed by abstractions can redefine its problems and tasks, defend them from interlopers, and seize new problems …’ (Abbott, 1988, p.9). The process of discipline formation is sometimes credited with providing new ways of looking at knowledge. For example the publication in the seventeenth century of Newton’s Principia provided mathematical principles for natural philosophy and thereby introduced a formal language that was able to introduce disciplines such as physics and astronomy. In more recent times, examination of how disciplines form usually includes consideration of just what is a discipline. Becher & Trowler (2001) review different approaches to this, noting such aspects as tradition, set of values and beliefs, mode of enquiry, conceptual structure, and network of communications. They make a distinction between two types of emphasis in investigation. These are either an epistemological one where the focus is concepts and fundamental aims, or a sociological one where there is a focus on organised social groupings. Nevertheless they recognise that most commentators give equal emphasis to both aspects. Sullivan (1996) focused on the mechanisms for communicating within a discipline. In considering how disciplinarity is displayed, he argued that to be published within a discipline an author must display allegiance to the discipline’s orthodoxy, while at the same time present some slight challenges. That is, whilst something novel should be produced, it should be done within the framework of how discourse is conducted based upon the discipline’s doctrinal knowledge. One way of looking at what determines disciplines is to consider what barriers exist to interdisciplinarity as Brewer (1999) has done. He itemises obstacles that include different cultures and frames of reference; different methods and operational Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 2: Literature review)
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objectives; different modes of discourse (both within disciplines, and between the disciplines and the world outside); the challenges of gaining trust and respect of others in different disciplines and fields; and professional impediments related to hiring, promotion, status, and recognition. However, there remains disquiet, particularly in the social sciences, about the practicality of defining disciplinary boundaries. These boundaries may be outlined (albeit with dotted lines) by communities of discourse, but the boundaries themselves may prove problematic for advancement of knowledge. For example Dervin (2003) in examining information seeking behaviour, protests the way disciplinarity is practiced. She laments the way that discourse communities are forged within boundaries, and how with maturation these boundaries have become more numerous and more rigid. She expresses a need for ways to make disciplines more useful, more flexible, and more able to find relevancies from discourses outside their boundaries, in ways that can lead to more productive and more useful inquiry. Much analysis of disciplines could be termed philosophical or sociological with investigators undertaking epistemological analysis of disciplinary boundaries or determination of the characteristics of a professional group. Where structured approaches to analysis are employed, they might be termed historiographic, looking into the documentation produced within a discipline, such as with respect to sociology itself in the work of Baehr (2002), or architecture in the study by Pai (2002). In terms of sociological analysis of the disciplines, the work of Abbott (1988) is relevant, in that he specifically considers the information professions. I return to this under the heading Information professions following. Before turning to discipline formation material specifically in the information management area, I now consider three areas that have an impact upon studies of the information management as a discipline or a profession.
2.2.
Information in organisations Information is managed in both personal and corporate contexts. It is the study
of its use in the latter that has led to disciplinary constructs. For example Lewis, Snyder and Kelly (1995) specifically examined such constructs with respect to managing information as a resource.
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They defined information resource management in terms of acquiring, storing, processing and distributing data in enterprises to meet business needs. By surveying senior computing managers of large companies and analysing 150 responses, they found that the most readily identifiable element associated with information resource management by such managers was the existence of a ‘chief information officer’. Other elements frequently mentioned included planning, security, advisory committees, information integration and data administration. Their work is developed from an extensive review, predominantly of the information systems literature. It reflects an often expressed view from the preceding decade in this field that information needs to be identified as a corporate resource. However, investigation of enterprise information utilisation has developed along many avenues prior to, then concurrently with this. For instance there is a significant literature on corporate communication. Goldhaber, Dennis, Richetto, and Wiio (1984) analysed communication in terms of what they called contingencies. These contingencies are both internal (for example, employee demographics, organisational structure), and external (regulatory and economic environment). The bearing of these contingencies is further affected by the condition of the enterprise (the extent to which it is passive or dynamic and responsive to external conditions) and characterised by the extent to which the organisation needs ‘intelligence’ (the factors that make information salient as far as management is concerned). In effect, work such as this, attempts to make distinctions between information management requirements for different corporate circumstances. F. W. Horton jr. (1985) used a more practical approach to investigate and explain how such contingencies require different models of information resource management for different types of enterprises. For example, he illustrated how business structure influences communication and information flows. This pragmatism has been carried further by provision of guidance on how to explore information flows in enterprises by application of communication audits (Hargie & Tourish, 1999). Others have endeavoured to typify information management based upon decision making imperatives. Rockart (1979) concentrated upon the information needs of chief executives. His influential work pointed to the limiting of information requirements to support identified critical success factors for an enterprise.
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Lord and Maher (1991) and Choo (1998b) have taken a more holistic corporate culture view to identify a number of frameworks in which enterprise decision making takes place. Strategies employed have been typified as rational, expert, cybernetic (learning from experience), political, process or anarchic. It is understanding of organisational culture in this way that has contributed to investigation of the concept of the learning organisation – an organisation that makes use of what is known and documented about its structures, processes and systems, and how they may be influenced from outside. Senge (1990) sees forward-looking enterprises (those that have the capacity to create their future) as having personnel with a culture of adaptive learning who work within a systems thinking framework. These organisations also foster shared vision with group commitment, team learning, personal mastery and continuous reflection leading to changing mental models. Often the focus of a learning organisation is its external environment. Long before the concept of the learning organisation had been introduced, the concept of environmental scanning and mechanisms for implementing it had been pursued at length. These mechanisms are a significant constituent of a learning organisation. In the business literature where they have been documented, the mechanisms may not have been articulated as information management. However, if they are to be put into effect, then procedures for managing information are required. A seminal thesis by Aguilar (1967) stimulated much research in the area. His initial suggestions for structuring procedures have since carried further, for example by Fahey and King (1977) and J. L. Horton (1995). There is now a plethora of texts that provide examples of the wide range of resources that can be utilised in scanning processes. These works tend to evaluate sources ranging from market research to internal databases that contain collections of external information, as well as Internet and ‘deep Web’ material. Normally they also include material on managing the intelligence collection practice including processing, reporting and distributing. They may also provide legal and ethical guidance to what is in any case meant to be a practice that makes use only of publicly available information. Recent examples include works by West (2001), and by McGonagle and Vella (2003) who have already produced many prior works in the same area. Environmental scanning is seen as a procedure supporting business or competitor intelligence gathering. Porter is well known for his work on competitive
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forces applying in an environment adopting information and communication technologies. His value chain analysis involves considering an enterprise in terms of primary and support activities, and has an emphasis on transformation of value by utilisation of information technology. However he has also focused on the part that information itself plays in deriving competitive advantage (Porter & Millar, 1985). Information (as distinct from information technology) also plays a part in transformation of value. This avenue of investigation which emphasises information as a corporate resource has many branches. F. W. Horton jr’s work has already been mentioned. He has also been active in developing methods for quantifying and evaluating such resources (Burk & F. W. Horton jr., 1988; F. W. Horton jr. 1991). This approach to auditing the information resource so that it may be used more effectively for strategic information management has also been extended in the UK (Buchanan & Gibb, 1998), and a text for applying it has been produced in Australia (Henczel, 2000). Some see the need for organisational information management in terms of maintenance of corporate memory (Megill, 1997) or alternatively in terms of effective utilisation of intellectual capital (Brooking, 1999). Reference to the intellect leads us to the consideration of knowledge, which has been a major focus of business information research over the last decade. Under the rubric of knowledge management, there has been a great deal of work building upon the knowledge creation ideas of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) who differentiated tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. The latter when it is documented (that is, recorded in some form), we may regard as information. The many works on management of knowledge promote a management approach that effectively combines communication and knowledge sharing in business with management of the recorded forms of that communication. Davenport has been at the forefront of spelling out elements of knowledge management (Davenport 1997; Davenport & Prusak, 1998). There are many subsequent works that advocate different applications of such an approach. For example
Dixon (2000) see benefits for
companies in sharing information and Liebowitz (2000) sees it in terms of transference of individual learning to organisational learning accompanied by processes such as audits for identifying where knowledge is, along with capturing it and storing it.
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More recently Davenport seems to acknowledge that a lot of what is described as knowledge management is in fact information management: “In practice what companies actually manage under the banner of knowledge management is a mix of knowledge, information and unrefined data – in short whatever anyone finds that is useful and easy to store in an electronic repository”, and that the part involving conversion to knowledge may not in fact be managed: “In the case of data and information however, there are often attempts to add more value and create knowledge. This transformation might involve the addition of insight, experience, context, interpretation, or the myriad of other activities in which human brains specialize” (Grover & Davenport, 2001). Further, some proponents of knowledge management, have substituted ‘knowledge leadership’ as a term that better reflects knowledge utilisation (Cavaleri, Seivert, & Lee, 2005). There appears to be a continuing lack of definition of the knowledge management profession that makes information management appear to be a relatively clearly differentiated. If there are aspects of knowledge management (or leadership) that remain after information management has been separated from it, they seem to comprise areas of human resource management involved with identifying expertise, providing ‘knowledge spaces’ so that information sharing is fostered, and identifying communication flows using such approaches as social network analysis. In short, it is acknowledged that the management of information in enterprises is a crucial aspect of business processes, but there are many perspectives on how it should effectively be tackled. These range from systems perspectives that focus on database development and utilisation through to business perspectives that see information generating knowledge that may be used for competitive advantage. In each case, there would be benefit in a concerted understanding of an information management discipline.
2.3.
Information professions If a discipline may be regarded as a branch of knowledge, then in academic
institutional terms, disciplines could be described as basic units of intellectual life in
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the academy. Among them, there is continual jockeying for position as paradigms and investigative methods wax and wane. However, in the social sciences and humanities there have been deliberate positions taken by what Anderson and Valente (2002) describe as post-disciplinary programs. In their view, these programs in areas such as cultural and women’s studies have a stance against discipline and have pursued an eclectic combination of fields, methods and theories, but in so doing they may be seen outside the academy as “overspecialised, arcane and ideologically invested”. Study of information is often described as interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary and so it too leaves itself open to charges of superficiality, lack of rigor and abandonment of carefully developed methodologies that have assured disciplinary integrity and success. However there are a significant number of people outside the academy who think they are carrying out information management as evidenced by the professional associations that have been formed in its name. It could be said that a discipline is formed to the extent that a profession decides to describe itself in terms of practice of that discipline. In information management there are professional associations that include ‘information management’ in their name but vary in their description of what it is. For example, on an international basis, the following are examples of associations that make explicit claims to information management:
• Aslib which claims to work with a wide range of organisations worldwide, promoting best practice in the field of information management (Aslib, 2006), and fostering this through an extensive publication program, including periodicals and books on information management for business such as that by Taylor and Farrell (1994). • AIIM founded as an institute of information management, and now calling itself an ‘enterprise content management’ (ECM) association, which provides ‘information management solutions’ to the ECM industry that support business continuity, customer collaboration, regulatory compliance, and use of process streamlining to reduce costs (AIIM International, 2006).
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• ARMA International (2006) which styles itself an authority on managing records and information, and which publishes The Information Management Journal. • International Information Management Association (2006), which has an emphasis on technology management. • International Academy for Information Management (2006), now affiliated as a special interest group of the Association for Information Systems, which provides a forum in which interdisciplinary researchers and educators can exchange ideas.
They are all involved in conference organisation and presentation as well as publication including a number of journals. Of these active international associations, some also have national sections. There are other professional associations whose name does not include ‘information management’ but who lay claim to information managers or to procedures that such professionals undertake. These include the American Society for Information Science and Technology, the Information Resources Management Association and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
2.3.1. Defining the information professions There has been a range of research that has investigated the extent and interests of the information professions. A seminal study that detailed the work of the information professions in the USA was that of Debons, King, Mansfield, and Shirey (1981). Their research involved an extensive survey of professions and at the time estimated that there were 1.64 million information professionals working in the U.S.A. They categorised what these people were doing as: managing information operations, programs, services, or databases; other operational information functions; information systems analysis; analysing data and information on behalf of others; preparing data and information for use by others; searching for data and information on behalf of others; information
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systems design; educating and training information workers; and information research and development. Many subsequent studies have confirmed the diffuseness of the employment sector for such work. Cronin, Stiffler and Day (1993) saw it in terms of the ‘heartland’ (traditional jobs in established institutions), the ‘hinterland’ (information work utilising traditional skills, but outside the traditional institutions, or requiring adaptation), and the ‘horizon’ (software engineers, telecommunications managers, and the like). The term multimodal is sometimes used to describe the tasks carried out, and one description that has gained some currency during this period is that of the ‘hybrid’ information worker. This is to convey the idea of a person who has had education in both information management and a subject discipline such as biology or psychology, and who is an information specialist focusing in the subject discipline. Abbott’s work was referred to earlier with respect to discipline analysis (Abbott, 1988). His focus is the professions, and he pursues a sociological analysis of the division of expert labour to examine how the professions work. He concentrates on the way that professional tasks are delineated and stratified. He is less interested in disciplinary boundaries than in defining their application - that is, their professional boundaries. However he does comment that the ability of a profession to sustain what he calls its jurisdiction is partly attributable to the power and prestige of its academic knowledge. Notwithstanding, he considers that the public has a mistaken belief that that such abstract knowledge is contiguous with practical professional knowledge. This is despite the contention that academic knowledge legitimises professional work by clarifying its foundations and tracing them to major cultural values (Abbott, 1988, p.54). Abbott’s work is of relevance to this study beyond his general examination of approaches to professional tasks, because he includes what he terms case studies of three professional areas, one of which is the information professions. His use of case study means a detailed historiographic analysis of the literature in terms of how it defines professional tasks. He sees the information professions as qualitative (principally librarians and journalists), and quantitative (a “complex and contentious group” including accountants, statisticians, operations researchers, and the like). He envisages these groups coalescing under one jurisdiction stimulated by the joint catalysts of computing technology and of information science.
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The professional periodicals of the professional associations often examine the boundaries of the field and what employment in it means, Journals such as Information Outlook and Online return repeatedly to role definition, sometimes supported by survey data. For example in reporting excerpts from their Outsell Inc study Corcoran, Dagar and Stratigos (2000) provide a wealth of data on roles. The roles that the data show to be most predominant are information research; selection, evaluation and acquisition of external content sources; training and educating endusers; developing and managing overall content solutions for users; managing desktop deployment of external content; performing value-added information analysis; and managing internally generated content.. Danner (1998) looked at the roles of information professionals from the perspective of law librarians. He conducted a wide ranging review that included comparisons of the library and the computing professions generally. He quoted Galvin's observations about the real world of work: that divergence among the information professions confuses employers and the public as to what information professionals do, and specialisation and unique academic credentials serve to narrow and limit career options and job mobility for information professionals themselves. This leads to the thought that the future of the information professions could be determined by the realities of the workplace and market forces. However, he did not regard it as a given, because librarianship and the other information professions have not developed along the lines of traditional professions like medicine and law. Therefore they may be better positioned for adapting to changes in work and organisations than professions instituted during the nineteenth century. There are other deliberations about professional role in the librarianship field where the skills are considered in relation to information management. For example Milne (2000) sees librarians having emerging opportunities in knowledge-aware organisations. Fourie (2004) describes these opportunities in terms of assessing changes in environment, and ways to repositioning through scenario building, literature reviews, situation analysis, speculation and forecasting. Many of the concerns expressed and changes anticipated by the earlier writers are brought together in a recent book by Myburgh (2005). In it, she calls for a reevaluation of the paradigm by which information professionals are defined, and in
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proposing the elements of a new one, seeks a stronger orientation towards management of information rather than management of documents. Of more practical orientation are documents that itemise skills seen to be necessary in the changing environment. For example the Special Libraries Association sees an information professional as someone who strategically uses information in the job to advance the mission of the organisation, and itemises the competencies necessary to accomplish this through ‘development, deployment, and management of information resources and services’ (Special Libraries Association, 2003). Similarly Abbott (2003) identifies the skills set needed by senior information managers in higher education in the UK, in what are differentiated as ‘converged’ and ‘non-converged’ information services. All such explorations of professional role have educational implications, so I turn now to work that has had a curriculum focus.
2.3.2. Education for the professions Naturally the professions have established profiles of education that they consider to encompass their areas. Some have taken considerable trouble to outline curricula that circumscribe their activities. However the ones such as those listed earlier that specifically call themselves information management associations, have to date confined themselves to such things as conferences, and provision of courses in their sphere of interest, rather than stipulating curricula that they see as essential for entry to the profession. By way of contrast, it is other associations that also see their purviews as including information management that have been more active in this respect. For example the Information Resource Management Association and the Data Administration Managers Association have a proposed curriculum (Cohen, 2000) that has elements including information resources management principles; information systems technology;
algorithm concepts and information management; data
warehousing, data mining, and decision support; data resource structures and administration; communication technology and information management; global information management; and executive information systems management.
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The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals has a ‘body of professional knowledge’ document (CILIP, 2004) that lists six components: a central information component, along with five interrelated components represented as knowledge, conceptual structures, information users or clients, documentation, and collections or information resources. Their document maps relationships between these. These typify the approaches of professions who do not worry too much about defining disciplinary boundaries, but set these limits to some extent by what they see as appropriate preparation for entry to their profession. As is to be expected, academics have been to the forefront in expressing the disciplinary boundaries, often in support of curriculum development. There is a large body of literature that examines and explicates appropriate curricula. This includes discussion of core competencies by G.E. Gorman, and Corbitt (2002). Somewhat surprisingly given the amount of debate in the area, Brine and Feather (2002) are of the view that there is probably general agreement about the knowledge and understanding which the new entrant to the profession needs to acquire; however they see less clarity regarding the practical skills training to function effectively as an information professional. However M. Gorman (2004) sees no such agreement with respect to library and information studies. He maintains that library schools have become hosts to information science and information studies faculty whose interests are at worst inimical to library education. His views exemplify the variance between those who emphasise the importance of customary library practice, as opposed to those who seek a wider context not tied to traditional repositories. An account of the wider context is provided by Hornby and Andretta (2001) who describe the debate at a conference on information specialists for the twenty-first century as providing an international perspective on the dichotomy between convergence and diversification in the professions. They then turn their attention to UK curriculum which they characterise as existing in a volatile environment for a discipline that is “lowly classified but highly specified, and with mixed framing” (Hornby & Andretta, 2001, p. 43). In this context, classification refers to what counts as valid knowledge, so there is not a well characterised core of knowledge in the field.
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Specification refers to the extent to which individual subject areas are described, and framing refers to the relationship between teacher and taught – strong framing would indicate that a teacher has most power to control transmission of knowledge. More recently Tedd (2003) has further detailed the changing roles of information professionals and how they should be addressed in education and training with attention to distance learning. She synthesises other recent papers in order to itemise tasks, responsibilities and roles as perceived in the UK then gives several brief case studies of curricula in several parts of the world that have adopted open learning training modules. However her conclusions are more about methods of delivery rather than the range of content included. Earlier, I referred to lack of definition for knowledge management as a profession. However curricula have been developed in many institutions that attempt to respond to this area of endeavour. For example Stankosky (2005) has brought together papers on research that has underpinned curriculum definition for knowledge management at an American university. There are also stirrings of critical assessment of such curricula. An example is the Chaudhry and Higgins (2003) report on a study of knowledge management courses included in what they term the academic disciplines of business, computing, and information. They describe changes in teaching emphasis, and the multidisciplinary nature of the curriculum. This leads to suggestion of a collaborative approach to designing and conducting such programs. There have been some attempts to provide definition of knowledge management profession role, for example Rowley (2003) sees it as a combination of managing knowledge repositories, facilitating knowledge flow, and leveraging value generation capacity. As a job title, ‘knowledge manager’ has attained some currency. However it seems more likely to be seen in terms of cultural change in organisations, rather than as a specified role. Much of the discussion around curriculum comes back to the content and boundaries of the field of information science, so I now turn to that in order to review its advancement.
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2.4.
Information science A science of information must be careful about defining what is the science and
what is the information. Much confusion is caused by different interpretations of data, information and knowledge. At a time when they seemed to have been differentiated to the satisfaction of people working in the field, uncertainty was re-introduced by the knowledge management movement which initially at least, did not carefully make such distinction. As information science seeks basic principles, and hopes to apply these to information management, and perhaps knowledge management, it is necessary to review these areas.
2.4.1. Definitions of information The extent to which knowledge about information itself was being systematised from quite different viewpoints was recognised by Machlup. He appreciated that contributions came from cognitive science, cybernetics, library science, linguistics, artificial intelligence and computer science, and explored ways of synthesising the different approaches. The work of Machlup and Mansfield (1983) contains a collection of commissioned discussion papers dealing with the study of information from a variety of these interdisciplinary viewpoints, together with editorial commentary. It includes a lengthy discussion by Machlup of the semantics of information and knowledge and science. He comes down on the side of information being a telling of something, or something that is being told, thereby rejecting the notion of it being applied to non-human organisms, or in the context of signal transmission. Another significant early work in the area is by Belkin (1978). Belkin is concerned about information theories, so he extensively surveys the literature up to that time, and comprehensively reviews the range of concepts embodied in the term information. Data, information and knowledge are sometimes used interchangeably in the copious literature of information studies, but more rigorous writers attempt to distinguish between them as successive levels on a graded scale of understanding. For example, Debons, Horne and Croneweth (1988, p.2) recognise prevalent everyday uses to be information as commodity, energy, communication, facts, data or knowledge. However for analytical purposes they articulate a continuum (they call it a spectrum) starting with an event that may be symbolised with data, and which may
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then be successively processed through a cognitive domain as information, knowledge and wisdom. Similar approaches to distinguishing these entities as successively higher levels of awareness have been suggested more recently by those grappling with the concept of knowledge management. Devlin (1999) extends this analysis by saying that information must be grasped according to situational analysis. He makes a distinction between the representation of information and what the information conveys. So the situation codes information by virtue of the situation being of a certain type. The information for the situation is subject to constraints (such as grammar, or a limited coding system). Constraints are the regularities that make intelligent action possible. Both McGarry (1993) and Liebenau and Backhouse (1990) outline a variety of definitions ranging from dictionary definition such as ‘near synonym of fact’; to ‘reinforcement of what is already known,’ which comes from Shannon’s communication model (Shannon & Weaver, 1964); to ‘the raw material from which knowledge is derived’; and to the cybernetic view: ‘that which is exchanged with the outer world, not just passively received’. Ritchie (1991) also looks at information and its characteristics in some detail, with reference to Shannon’s communication theory, and Hayes (1993) considers the relationship between data and information, and using Shannon’s data transfer measure as a starting point, proposes data selection, data structuring and data reduction. These definitions tend either towards an approach in which information is selfcontained and has a kind of objective existence independent of use, or towards an understanding that says information is defined by its use and human interpretation. The latter requires information to be constructed by the cognition of receivers (Dervin & Niland, 1986). Dervin has written extensively from the point of view of information needs, seeing information as a stimulus that alters our cognitive structures, and later suggesting a communitarian perspective. This is seen to be a socially constructed definition somewhere between the relativism of “no-truth-only-interests” and the absolutism of “truth-and-it-is-mine.” She is therefore seeking a middle course in which information is something continuously being sought through struggle, mediation and contest, with the nature of this process being “at least as informative as the resolution and more likely to serve diverse groups of citizens as they try to make community of their diversity.” (Dervin, 1992; 1994).
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This is on quite a different tack from the general theory of information proposed by Stonier (1990). He promotes a definition of information as having existence independent of the human mind in the same way that matter and energy have. He describes information in terms of being a measure of the extent of organisation of a system. Other influential writers in the area include Buckland (1991) who gives a detailed exposition on information and information systems in which documents are interpreted broadly as evidentiary objects, and proposes three meanings of information: information-as-process, information-as-knowledge, and information-asthing; Menou (1995) who reviews concepts of information, and proposes a research agenda for its definition and measurement; and Tague-Sutcliffe (1995) who looks in detail at interpretations of information as a prelude to demonstrating a technique for measuring ‘informativeness’ in information retrieval, and applying this to evaluation of information services. A contrary approach is taken by Roszak (1994) who questions the dataknowledge continuum, approaches knowledge as something that makes information possible, and disputes the importance given to information in the information society at the expense of the ‘self-originating idea’. Dialogue about definition has continued unabated this century. Emphasis on its meaning continues to tend towards a social construct rather than as some entity that may have independent existence. Case (2002) examines definitions in the context of research into information seeking behaviour. He spends some time reviewing definitions and discussing problems, in particular definitions that take into account uncertainty, physicality, structure/process, intentionality or truth. He then concedes that different restricted definitions may apply according to circumstances studied. Capurro and Hjørland (2003) also revisit the concept of information in a wide ranging review. They look at the term’s etymology and Greek origins, noting a transition during the middle ages from “giving a (substantial) form to matter” to “communicating something to someone”, before moving to more contemporary interpretations. They reflect upon the confusion caused by the abstraction of meaning in information theory that derived from Shannon’s work on communication. This causes them to recall the debate about naturalisation of information which tried to
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dissociate the signal level from semantic and pragmatic information, but which flounders to those who say there is no information without contextualisation – this in contrast Stonier’s theory of objective information in which information exits independently of thought or meaning. Recently Bates (2005) has endeavoured to unite competing viewpoints by returning to an earlier designation of information as ‘pattern of organization of matter and energy’ for its usability across the physical, biological and social contexts. In order to link this section on definition with the one following on elements of the science, it is instructive to rehearse the social context from which Brown and Duguid (2000) consider information. From their perspective information technology is questioned as a shaper of social organisation – it is shared interpretation rather than shared information that binds people together. This leads them via a review of information retrieval research to information science. It is a science which they maintain should not be defined by technologies that it uses, but as the study of information. This information can be differentiated as “thing” from “sign”. The latter interpretative view, they see as being important in stimulating “release mechanisms” whereby people can act on subjective interpretation.
2.4.2. Elements of information science Those who see themselves as information scientists, continually return to trying to map out just what is covered by the field. This has often been done by putting together compilations of works in the filed and trying to draw associations between them or organise them into a structure that interrelates the elements. In this way there has been developed a body of work that gives theoretical underpinning to the management of information. One of the first to do this was Saracevic (1970) who compiled a selection that was influential in mapping the territory of information science, including papers on information theory, basic processes such as communication of documented records and behaviour of information users, information analysis and retrieval, and evaluation of systems. It includes a discourse by Goffman on a general theory of communication encompassing information retrieval.
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Since then various compilations have been accumulated by writers who have tried to demarcate the field. Heilprin (1985) brought together a number of papers in similar vein with an emphasis on trying to provide a basic model for information science, and Walker (1992) and then Williams and Carbo (1997) adopted a similar approach. Meadows (1987) compiled a collection of earlier material including seminal papers dealing with the growth of documentation, citations and their use, information services and science, and statistical regularities in communication such as those relating to scientific productivity. The tactic adopted by Pemberton and Prentice (1990) was to bring together a number of conference and seminar papers from a variety of disciplines contributing to information science, lending support to the notion of its continuing interdisciplinarity. Others have written their own overviews. Buckland and Liu (1995) carried out a bibliographic study of works that have examined the history of perceptions of the science. Debons, Horne and Croneweth (1988) presented a framework for the concepts and issues that contribute to a science of information in relation to building information systems. In this context they considered definitions of information, the professions that work with information and the models of information systems with which they work. They also examined the technologies used for implementing the systems. More recent works include the concise work of Norton (2000) that is designed to stimulate fresh discourse, and the revisit by Griffiths (2000) that reflects a desire to refocus on the foundations of information science disciplines. In the recent literature, the person who has probably invested most effort in understanding domains of information science has been Birger Hjørland. In a series of papers, he has tried to place information description, retrieval, repositories and users within an overall epistemological framework (Hjørland 1998a; 1998b; 2000a; 2000b). He reiterates the theme that epistemological theories are fundamental to understanding of information. From this he thinks that subject analysis and classification of information along with understanding users, their cognition and information seeking behaviour, and information retrieval can be better understood. He goes on to outline a socio-cognitive perspective to information retrieval in which he espouses that the most fundamental problem is epistemological and is rooted in the difficulty of trying to match representations of subject literature with inadequate ways of expressing user requirements (Hjørland, 2002b).
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Hjørland (2002a) also suggests what he terms domain analysis to identify a number of approaches which he sees together as producing a unique competence for information specialists. These are producing literature guides and subject gateways; producing special classifications and thesauri; research on indexing and retrieving specialties; empirical user studies; bibliometrical studies; historical studies; document and genre studies; epistemological and critical studies; terminological studies, languages for special purposes, discourse studies; studies of structures and institutions in scientific communication; and domain analysis in professional cognition and artificial intelligence. In each case he offers suggestions for practical and theoretical investigation in order to strengthen the relationship between research and practice in information science and more strongly establish its identity. For example in the realm of indexing and retrieving he suggests that information science has largely ignored the way different subject areas may put different demands on systems for organising and retrieving documents. He thinks that a stronger focus may be obtained by producing special classifications and thesauri; bibliometrical studies; epistemological and critical studies; and terminological studies including languages for special purposes and discourse analysis. Although there is contemplation of information systems within these information science frameworks, there seems to be a significant disjunction between information science and information systems research. Ellis, Allen, & Wilson (1999) illustrate this point using citation analysis by showing that the leading scholars in the two fields are in different groups. The information systems field has also grappled with this issue. Of the many texts on the practice of information systems, some take the trouble to explore where the discipline ‘fits’. For example Ahituv & Neumann (1986) emphasise interdisciplinarity, and provide a schematic in which they
show ‘foundations’
arising from what they term ‘exact science’ (in which they include general systems theory, statistics, and management science), technology (in which they include information science and computer science) and social and behavioural sciences (ranging from sociology to philosophy) . Their book structure has them creating a scaffold using behavioural aspects of information systems, decision making and
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valuing information, and classification of systems, before they consider organisational application. Looking at the information systems disciplinary issue from a research methods viewpoint, Banville and Landry (1992) also conclude that the area is fragmented and scientifically pluralistic. They think that those who are calling for a more unified discipline seem to be basing it upon the premise of scientific knowledge having intrinsically different characteristics from other knowledge when it too is socially defined. More recently Khazanchi and Munkvold (2000) consider disciplinary aspects of both information systems and information science. They see information science as a secondary reference discipline of information systems. Information systems is for them an investigation of effective use of information and the potential impact of software systems and enabling information technologies on the human, organisational, and social world. They maintain that although IT is the key enabling technology for both information science and information systems, the focus of information science is different in that it is on the structure and management of large information entities, with documentalists and librarians being key agents. Although they pay attention to information science, they do not consider such elements as definitions of information, or exploration of tenets and principles of information science, and how these may inform work in information systems as an application. With information systems study the emphasis seems to be substantially on the systems and process; with information science the emphasis seems to be substantially on the information and its content. They have in common an emphasis on social context and use, but this has not brought unity of focus. Despite this, there seems to be agreement in both fields about their essential interdisciplinarity. Returning to information science, it seems that despite the many attempts to arrive at conceptual boundaries for the field, a more pragmatic approach comes through in the recent interim last word from Bottle, who is now deceased. Among his parting words in a succinct account of information science, is that it is probably “unique in being defined in terms of what practitioners do rather than vice versa” (Bottle, 2003). This leads us to consideration of the practice of information
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management in contrast to the conceptual boundaries of the information science which informs it.
2.5.
Information management as practice Although a great deal of scrutiny has been undertaken of what are the
constituents of information management, there has been relatively little explicit consideration of discipline formation with respect to its practice. It is not possible to be definite about when the term information management was initially used in the sense of defining an area of practice. However in 1966, R. S. Taylor (who later was to be very influential through his work on valuing information and on information needs), wrote in terms of defining information management as a sub-discipline designed to acquaint engineering students with principles, theory and use of information as an adjunct to the learning process. Further he was prescient in saying: … the concept of information management is attractive because it provides a single concept in place of several in ‘information source, media and systems’, thereby offering simplification in thought and discussion. Also this suggests the integration in information sources, media and systems that is coming … the separated approaches to the problem represented by the stereotypes of traditional librarians, modern information experts and computer systems specialists will vanish. The term management implies … that the engineer’s handling of information will not usually yield to routine methods, but require judgment. (R. S. Taylor, 1966, p. 6)
Subsequent to this there seems for some time to have been a tussle within management and academic minds to differentiate ‘information management’ and ‘information resource management’. This probably led the likes of Trauth (1989), then Boaden and Lockett (1991) to investigate the etymology of the terms as applied in the professional literature. The resource aspect seems to have been pursued most consistently in North America, probably as a consequence of being used in the USA by the National Commission on Federal paperwork in the late 1970s. The studies
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director for that program was Woody Horton, and the terminology used in many of his own publications, (for example F.W. Horton jr.,1985; 1991), presumably influenced government legislation that arose from the Commission. The concept has retained currency in North America during the 1990s, for example it has been reviewed by Bergeron (1996), but it seems gradually to have been subsumed within ‘information management’. This has most likely been assisted by writers such as Diener (1992) who adopting a conceptualisation and advocacy rather than investigatory approach, refines understanding of the area by outlining domains. A person who has been most eloquent in characterising the area has been Cronin either through his own words, or through judicious compilations of writings including his own. In one of the earliest of these, he brings together a group of papers in order to provide pointers to how information management may be put into action (Cronin, 1985). He recognised at the time that that the information management concept was something growing out of changing occupational and social structures that helped to identify information society, and to differentiate the utilisation of information from the utilisation of information technology. So in organisational terms, information management can be seen to lead to something beyond a technology solution. For example, a decision support system may help to aggregate and present information from management information systems. However, further than this, information management needs to determine information resource requirements, how they should be made available, used and exploited following identification of the distinctive requirements of different user groups. With his co-writers, he tackled these issues by describing possible corporate roles, including development of information plans, and specific tasks such as information mapping, and implications for training. They also addressed the then problematic dichotomy between information management and information resource management. As noted above, this seems to have in more recent times been resolved in favour of information management. I think that this is probably because at the time, it seemed necessary to get across the idea that information was another corporate resource that should be valued along with capital, buildings and people. However, both F. W. Horton jr. (1979) himself, and R. S. Taylor (1986) have convincingly provided approaches to valuing information, and in more recent times it has come to seem tautological to use the phrase information resource.
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Some years later, Cronin (1992) returned with another group of writers and a second compilation. By then he felt that information management had come of age with both public and private sectors acknowledging the need for information management policies and programs. However he decried the focus of literature in the area as being narrower and more mechanistic that the world to which it is supposed to relate. Despite this, he is able to point to the usefulness of information modelling methods ranging from information resource mapping (Burk & F. W. Horton jr., 1988) to soft systems methodology (Checkland & Scholes, 1990), and to initiatives such as that of the then UK Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA, 1990) in fostering information management. This time, his co-writers have diversified their approach to take in such matters as extending corporate memory, information management at a national public policy level, and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) from the viewpoint of a supporting framework through telecommunications management and open systems strategies. In the interim between these two publications, Cronin with Elisabeth Davenport, had also explored the intellectual foundations of the field. However, rather than turn to information science in the sense that I have explored in the preceding section, they seem to make a conscious attempt to avoid formal representation of information entities, with the remark that consistent and complete processes “may distort the reality which the system is intended to represent where underlying models fail to take account of fluctuations, unforeseen events, and human affect” Cronin and Davenport (1991). They look at the varying application of information management in contexts ranging from science to business to warfare, noting the relativism of metaphors and models applied in the different areas, before suggesting that information management can be modelled for specific purposes in specific contexts. Choo (1998a) has also pursued an information management modelling approach without reference to information science. However he makes no reference to Cronin and Davenport’s models and metaphors material. This could be because his ideas had their genesis at about the same time, or because his general process model which is couched in terms of information needs, acquisition, organisation, products, distribution and use, is trying to build a bridge between environmental scanning processes and the principle of a learning organisation. Fittingly, he does refer to later work of Cronin and Davenport on social intelligence.
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A similar approach to Cronin’s compilations has been undertaken by Brittain (1996). He felt the need for practical cases that could be used as teaching examples. This compilation is relevant to the research in that it includes contributions on definitional issues for information management together with case studies. However, there is not an attempt to couch the case studies in terms of the definitional framework. In fact the case study contributions make little reference to working within an information management agenda. Rather, they write in detail about how information is handled, and information services are provided in a variety of settings. A compilation, specified as case studies, has been put together by Simmons (1999). Though it ranges widely through enterprises as diverse as Unesco, British Airways, and SmithKline Beecham, it explicitly steers clear of in-depth systematic qualitative research, opting instead for discursive interviews with key individuals. In more recent work, there seems to have been a declining imperative to speak of information as a resource. However the concept of learning organisations and recognition of the concepts of corporate memory and intellectual capital have produced a wealth of recent literature on knowledge management in which knowledge now takes its turn as a resource (Davenport, 1997; Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Choo, 1998b; Srikantaiah & Koenig, 2000). One of the early proponents of knowledge management, Karl-Erik Sveiby, later wrote that he disliked the term (Sveiby, 2001) and described it in terms of two ‘tracks of activities’, management of information and management of people.). Nevertheless, it seems that understanding of this area is shifting away from the idea of managing knowledge to one of managing the knowledge space. That is, it is information, human resources, and the environment in which they interact in order to build knowledge that is managed, rather than the knowledge itself (Nonaka & Konno, 1998). Therefore, for my purposes, it seems reasonable to stay with information management as a concept rather than edge towards knowledge management. None of this material on information or knowledge management explicitly addresses the issue of discipline formation. However, the information management writing all informs my investigation, either because it describes models for how information management should be applied, or describes examples of the range of its practice. In the better examples there are attempts to show the principles associated
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with the practice, and to highlight the importance of contextualisation with organisations. It remains therefore to attempt to consider professionalised practice and information science framing of practice to see if together they substantiate a discipline.
2.6.
Information management as discipline If we are to see how information management as practiced has been carried out
within a disciplinary framework as articulated for information science, then it is necessary to review work that speaks in terms of information management, but proposes a disciplinary framework within which it may be construed. The work of Greer (1989) probably fits better within the earlier sections on education for the professions or information science. Nevertheless it is included here since in articulating a model for the information science discipline in order to detail an educational agenda, he outlines what he sees as characteristics common to all information professions. These characteristics are responsibility for: (a) design and management of an information system encompassing a database; (b) design and management of an organisation and its resources in order to provide an interface between system and potential user; (c) accommodating the information needs and characteristics of a specific client population; and (d) information as commodity and the objective of enhancing the processes of information transfer. The writer who has most explicitly addressed information management discipline formation is Rowley (1998; 1999). Her material is significant because she has published profusely (including texts) in different areas of information management. Her texts in areas as diverse as information systems, systems analysis, indexing, and electronic libraries are widely used and cited. The approach adopted in her discipline formation articles is discursive, and involves characterisation of what she perceives to be the field taking historical approaches into account. The work is to some extent historiographic as a contribution to its model building. She adopts a viewpoint that information is practice-based with both systems and behavioural dimensions. She regards information processing as an activity common to all information users, and information management as being the province of professionals (albeit with imprecise professional boundaries) who draw upon many Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 2: Literature review)
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contributing disciplines including management science, information systems, computing science and cybernetics. She maintains that the structuring of information is fundamental to the professional approach and requires agents who will take responsibility for such structure taking into account issues such as selection, time, hierarchy and sequence. She has also contributed to a proposed 7Rs model (Butcher & Rowley, 1998). This is presented as a cycle that has information passing through stages between individuals and organisations and successively requiring reading (passing from the public to the personal domain) recognition, re-interpretation, reviewing (at which stage it may return to the public domain), release, re-structuring, retrieval. Then the cycle is repeated. This model appears to have some basis in the distinction between private knowledge and social knowledge as described by Kemp (1976), and reflects to some extent the models of scientific communication explicated twenty years earlier by Garvey (1979). Rowley (1998) also speaks in terms of information managers working at different levels within the framework of an information environment that she characterises as having different levels: information contexts; information systems; and information retrieval. She sees information managers as working within different levels of definition of information. In the environment the information processors are society as a whole, the information managers are corporations and educational institutions, and information is a commodity and constitutive force; at the contextual level the processors are organisations, information is seen as a resource and the information managers are working in strategic positions or as organisational scientists; at the system level the information managers are system analysts and designers and information is seen as data or thing; and at the retrieval level information processors are individuals, information managers are indexers, database designers, interface designers and information is regarded as subjective knowledge. Rowley’s work appears not to have been tested by reference to information management applications, except conceptually by Frishammar who has attempted to place information management and related activities such as environmental scanning and market research within an information processing context.
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2.7.
Summary and focus of study Roberts (1996) noting the lack of consensus or unified theory in information
management, proposed the challenge of looking for a completely different and autonomous set of principles. He also proposed some of his own under the headings technological, economic, value, competitive advantage, and strategic. My work is a response to his challenge, though it is modulated by the awareness that if information management has disciplinary features, then they may have much in common with those reported by Whitley (1984) with respect to the early stages of the development of management as a discipline area viz.:
•
A heavy reliance on reference disciplines.
•
A paucity of theory specific to the discipline.
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A perceived lower status than for established disciplines, leading to the adoption of methods from the higher status disciplines.
•
Limited numbers of textbooks that review the discipline.
•
Poor definition of the boundaries of study.
•
Incorporation organisationally as a sub-set of an established discipline.
Whitley uses the term “fragmented adhocracy” to describe this immature stage of the development towards a distinct discipline. The motive for defining the disciplinary boundaries and practice based upon principles might well be to provide a concerted view of what affiliates within a profession are holding to as their branch of learning. There are other drivers. For example Graham and Thralls (1998) with respect to disciplinary investigation of the field of business communication, have quoted Renz that such discourse is propelled in part by “collective desire to understand better the work that we are engaged in". However they are of the view that a more driving impetus appears to be political in that business communications academics are minorities in their academic departments, and their work may not be understood or appreciated by colleagues, administrators, or promotion committees who may perceive business communication
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as skills-oriented rather than as a coherent, knowledge-producing field. There has therefore been intense and sustained self-reflection on the nature of disciplinarity driven by desire to bolster status, and to legitimise and clarify the field. This could well apply to academic aspects of information management. So too might the “fragmented adhocracy” label apply to information management. My review shows that there are many individuals and organisations with an interest in defining what is encompassed by information management. There is a great deal of expert opinion on what the elements of the field are, how they may be applied in organisations, how they may be underpinned by models and principles, and what type of education is required to enter into practice. There are some examples of documented practice through case studies such as the aforementioned compilations of Brittain and of Simmons. However these do not attempt to explain the practice in terms of a disciplinary framework. Where principles have been used to examine cases, such as by Orna (1999), the investigation has been carried out within that aspect of information management dealing with policy and planning. In some other cases where information management purview has been substantiated by research, the research has been focused on discipline or on professional practice. Other than through advocacy there do not appear to have been significant attempts to associate disciplinary boundaries with professional application. This area could therefore benefit from research which articulates the disciplinary boundaries and then investigates how they are interpreted by those professing to be the practitioners, thereby improving understanding of the discipline from its contextualisation.
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Chapter 3: Expressing information management principles 3.1.
Information management Book preliminaries The study has been built around a detailed description of information management
principles and practice, which are in effect a proposal of disciplinary content. They are stated in a book which was accepted for publication as:
Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: a consolidation of
operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga: CSU Centre for Information Studies.
The book was written in order to provide a consolidation of information management principles within a framework defined by domains. It is meant to provide a detailed explanation of the field described in detail within operational, analytical and administrative domains. As an exposition of disciplinary application it is meant not so much as a text book, but one that may provide an overall context for professional or academic users. I am aware of three universities in Australia other than my own that use it in this manner. The book was written in four sections:
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Part A: An overview that includes chapters on the information professions, information science and information as a focus within organisations.
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Part B: Operational information management - 10 chapters examining the way information management is undertaken organised according to a continuum or life cycle.
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Part C: Analytical information management - 4 chapters examining analytical aspects, in particular user needs analysis, information resources analysis, systems analysis and evaluation.
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•
Part D: Administrative aspects - 3 chapters that consider strategic approaches to information as a resource, planning and policy aspects and the wider social and political context as it impinges upon organisations.
Extracts from the Book: Overview Five extracts from the book are included here as examples of key elements which together illustrate the whole. Section 3.2 reproduces Chapter 1 of the book – this is the Introduction to the book which sets its overall context, and is therefore included in full. Section 3.3 reproduces an extract from Chapter 4 of the book. This chapter is concerned with organisational use of information and covers concepts such as organisational intelligence, decision-making, information responsibilities, processing of information received from outside, and identification of types of sources, and knowledge transfer processes. The entire chapter is not included – the illustration has been confined to the sections that examined information responsibilities, and environmental scanning. Section 3.4 reproduces an extract from one of the operational domain chapters of Part B, in this case Chapter 10 which deals with control of recorded information by content. The entire chapter is not included – the illustration has been confined to first section of this chapter which introduces classification. Section 3.5 reproduces an extract from one of the analytical domain chapters of Part C, in this case Chapter 18. The entire chapter is not included – the illustration has been confined to sections directed towards evaluation of operational techniques. Section 3.6 reproduces an extract from one of the administrative domain chapters of Part D, in this case Chapter 20. The entire chapter is not included – the illustration has been confined to sections on corporate information policy and learning organisations.
Contribution to research The book proposes a detailed disciplinary framework for information management. It does this with reference to prior literature and professional tenets which are used to consolidate information principles and practice in one work.
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The disciplinary framework is embedded in both the structure and content of the book. The structure is used to illustrate the influences on development of information management, and then the different domains of practice that apply. These domains are then exemplified by a series of chapters that which in each case explain an element of the domain. In the case of the operational domains, the elements are based upon stages of an information life cycle. In the analytical domain, the elements are different analytical approaches that are utilised for determining individual, system or service requirements. In the administrative domain, strategic planning influences from both inside and outside enterprises are explored. The book is used as a basis for subsequent further exploration of the discipline by using it as a structural device for a case study protocol that is used to analyse STI services. The analysis of these services is described in Chapters 5 and 6, with the second of these chapters concentrating upon the applicability of the disciplinary framework. A refinement of the disciplinary framework is subsequently proposed in Chapter 7 based upon the book and an alternative framework suggested by Rowley. The book’s content is also used to inform a paper included as Chapter 8 that differentiates information management and librarianship.
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3.2.
Information management Book chapter: ‘Introduction’
This publication extract is the Introduction from the Information Management book, viz:
Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: a consolidation of
operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: CSU Centre for Information Studies, Chapter 1: Introduction.
The Introduction is included in full since it sets the scene for the document in its entirety by providing some historical context together with some recent precursors of information management, along with definitions and an introduction to the domain approach that was suggested by Diener (1992).
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Introduction
Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge Daniel J Boorstin, NY Times 8 Jul 1983
A Context When we communicate with each other, the state of our knowledge changes. This learning process may be from our ad hoc experiences, or in more formal environments, where we like to record in some manner the information that is being communicated. So much gets written down, in so many different ways, that we need to set up formal ways of managing it. If those ways are effective, then information helps, rather than hinders knowledge creation. If we analyse what we do when we communicate, then one way of looking at the information transfer that occurs, is to consider the form of transferring medium. What agent is carrying the information? The communication may be either direct as in personal discussions or broadcasts or telephone conversations, or it may be indirect via a medium of record such as a letter, a book, a tape recording or a computer disk. The direct forms may always be used indirectly too, by being recorded for later re-use. Recorded communication works better if the document is structured in a manner familiar to users. Books have chapters; computer disks have files with standard extension names. Even email has some structure, if only from a title and sender name. By way of contrast, the direct form will normally have much less structure, and may not require organisation for use by individuals. Nevertheless, in order to be put to most effective use in an institutional setting such as a business, both the direct and recorded forms need to be managed. In this book we mean information management to be the
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organisation of the institutional processes necessary for use of information, as well as organisation of the information itself for effective communication - whether directly or in recorded form. Therefore, management deals both with the processes for planning and implementing the provision and use of information resources, as well as the techniques for configuring information in its many recorded forms. This is in search of outcomes such as improved decision making, knowledge gathering, education and cultural support. On a daily basis, we encounter information management being used to simplify communication. We are able to consult a telephone directory that has been organised into alphabetical order of names, or make sense of signs in a shopping centre where icons have been used according to a convention of symbols, or read a bus timetable, or select items from a menu when it has been arranged in a systematic fashion whether in a restaurant or on a computer screen. In each case, the organisation is a consequence of information management. Consider for example Figure 1.1, which illustrates some prominent historical examples of organisation of information. These are examples of information management that we take for granted, perhaps unconscious of the extent to which the information is organised for interpretation. It can get more complicated. The syntax of a programming language, the notation of a musical composition, the prescription of a drug, or the codes for plays in a football game, are more specialised forms of information organisation for interpretation by specialists trained in the respective fields. However the specialists often take information for granted too, and regularly to our cost. This was examined on a broad scale some time ago in a collection of ‘information disasters’. The severity of consequences such as the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown, the cultural disintegration of an Australian aboriginal tribe, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, and the Stock Exchange crash of 1987 may have been alleviated to an extent, if the information available had been managed more appropriately. Horton & Lewis (1991) drew our attention to this by soliciting and reviewing a number of analyses of the situations described. They decided in many cases the protagonists were either uninformed, misinformed, disinformed, or if they were informed, then not able to fit the information into preconceived stereotype, value systems, belief systems or attitudes.
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Figure 1.1 Examples of information organisation
Figure 1.1a: The Rosetta stone, named after the town of Rashid (Rosetta to the English) was located by French troops near the western arm of the Nile during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign of 1799. The broken black basalt stone became a spoil of the British in 1801 and made its way to the British Museum. It is inscribed with an honorific of 196 BC to the Pharaoh Ptolemy V that concludes with the resolution that it be inscribed in hard stone in the sacred (hieroglyphs), native (demotic) script and Greek letters. Because this was done, twenty centuries later hieroglyphics were decipherable (ironically by a Frenchman, Champollion, in 1822). This image is of a replica at http://www.usask.ca/antiquities/Collection/Rosetta_Stone_1.JPG by permission of the Museum of Antiquities, University of Saskatchewan.
Figure 1.1b: The Pioneer plaques designed by Carl Sagan were carried aboard the US space probes Pioneer 10 and 11. These were the first earth-launched vehicles to go beyond the asteroid belt to the outer solar system. Information was organised in an attempt to provide an indication of where the earth is, and the appearance of humans on it (in case anything out there were interested). (image made available by NASA at http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/GPN-2000-001623.jpg)
Figure 1.1c: A 1612 world map by Ortelius. Among the impressive early ‘geographic information systems’ were the maps produced by European cartographers. (reproduced with permission from http://www.heritageantiquemaps.com)
Figure 1.1d: A schematic of the Washington DC transport system, the ‘Metro’, condensing a complex system into a representation that must be understood by many (reproduced with permission from Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority)
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Their examples are on a grand scale. However, similar examples of un-, mis-, and dis- information, are repeated continually in microcosm, perhaps during a dispute between neighbours over the siting of a boundary, or the lack of substantiating references in an essay. The communication process is often impaired by recourse to incomplete or incorrect information. Because we live in a world where we are ‘collapsing the information float’1, dealing with and making effective decisions based upon the large amounts of information that we have at our disposal, is a pressing problem. A key field of study is the one that can find ways of using effective information organisation and management processes to limit information flow to an amount that is relevant and can be digested. Contributions to the study of such processes have been made in many fields of endeavour. The study of direct communication has been the province of linguists, psychologists, educators and others. The study of the indirect or recorded form of communication through documentation has often been more dependent upon context: records management for files and records in offices, archives administration for stored historical records, librarianship for repositories of published documents, museology for description of museum collections, and more recently data administration for computer records, and scientometrics for scientific publishing. These studies have improved our understanding of information transfer processes, and have lately been given more urgency by the growing movement towards recognition firstly of information, then knowledge, as a resource in business enterprises. This has occurred concurrently with the diminution of information processing differences in separate environments of application. Maintaining and using for knowledge creation, a database on human resources, or of machine components, or of library books are not in such different realms. The organisation of the recorded form in any one of these contexts may be regarded as a component of information management in a business or institutional environment. An enterprise will regularly expect its management and staff to make use of information systems such as:
1
This term was used in Naisbitt’s book Megatrends, Futura, 1984, to describe the issue of communications technology markedly reducing the time a message spends on a channel between a sender and a receiver.
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•
Inventory control.
•
Records management.
•
Human resources and personnel.
•
Production control.
•
Publishing.
•
Sales and marketing.
•
Library and online and news services.
•
Marketing and sales performance.
•
Geographic and demographic analysis.
Each of these systems should be designed so that the information communicated through them is created, disseminated and presented to the users in an optimal manner for the benefit of the enterprise. The information gathering and maintenance processes that produce databases to support the procedures have regularly been factored into budgets as overheads. However, now that long established processes have attained greater prominence by implementation using information technology, the databases and the services that they are based upon, are increasingly being regarded as resources. Business writers have recognised the qualities of information, and knowledge as resources. They have increasingly espoused the need for management of these resources as a necessary element of the administrative process. They have regularly done so without reference to substantive techniques other than data analysis of business processes, and with minimal reference to operational methodology. Conversely, these operational techniques have regularly been implemented by analysts, data administrators, librarians and records managers, but often without emphasis on the value and substance that they provide for business practice: the quality in quality systems. Management may therefore be unimpressed by the extent of overheads that may be showing no obvious benefits for a business. The different disciplines, often working independently have developed their own jargon and principles for comprehending similar procedures. However, many of these may be consolidated as a result of the convergence of processes induced by the developments in information technology.
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Our work here endeavours to bring together these various contexts for the mutual benefit of their practitioners, and draws together ideas on the process of information management that have been articulated in different disciplines. It introduces a field of endeavour, but at the same time may be used by those who are working in the field to act as a companion, should they wish to place their understanding in a broader context. Each chapter may therefore be regarded as providing guidance on history and principles, which may be extended by reference to associated readings.
On the record It could be said that information management is only required because we have a habit of recording what we do in many ways, be it on a clay tablet or a CD. For the recorded information to be useful, it often requires some kind of organisation. Though we should be cautious about the extent to which the recording preserves the veracity of the information, as was the fictional Dr Braithwaite2: ‘What happened to the truth is not recorded’. Disciplines have developed to deal with various types and applications of documentation. There are records managers for corporate memory exemplified in policies and decisions on paper, data administrators for information repositories, cataloguers for libraries, and curators for museum objects as historical records and educational items. Rayward (1996) has suggested that each of these disciplines has differentiated itself as a profession with a distinct character based on historically determined commitments to different technologies, media of communication and record, and primary client groups. The various professions have certainly carved out their respective niches. However we should recollect that early examples of information management were archives that did not distinguish internal corporate information from published information, and that did not have to worry about different client groups. The collections of antiquity whether they were on the clay tablets of Assyrians, or the 2
Julian Barnes Flaubert’s Parrot, Picador, London 1985, p. 65
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bamboo and paper of the Chinese in what we now recall as libraries, were repositories of both administrative and expository information, and documented ideas. There was then no distinction between an archive and a library. These antecedents have been succeeded by a range of contemporary tasks that may also be described as information management, but in terms of job titles are usually called anything but information management. Figure 1.2 itemises some examples of information management tasks of today.
Organisation of medical records in a hospital
Carrying out a knowledge audit in a consulting firm
Design of an interface for a multimedia instructional package
Creation of a decision support system to help manage emergency services
Development of a quality management strategy for information acquisition
Online searching of multiple databases for end users
Establishing databases for a campus wide information system
Cataloguing of medieval manuscripts
Description and organisation, and digitisation of an art slide collection
Application of international standards for information retrieval
Strategic planning for utilisation of information in a mining company
Records management in a government primary industries department
Geohydrological data collection for water management
Instruction of primary students in information literacy
Development of a retention and disposal inventory for archival utilisation
Determining information needs of users of a community information service
Information services provision for a museum
Creating customised user pages for World Wide Web interfaces
Building a thesaurus to describe the documentation of architecture
Environmental scanning for business information for a manufacturing company
Reformatting and presentation of stock exchange data for a brokerage firm
Electronic document management for an administrative office system
Organisation of government information resources in a library
Integration of loose leaf and database reporting services for a legal firm
Description and cataloguing of musical scores for an orchestra
Figure 1.2: Information management tasks associated with records
Management is regularly said to consist of the mechanisms of planning, organising, coordinating, commanding and controlling. Is information management a matter of applying these processes to information? It certainly involves planning, organising and coordinating information, assuming that these may be interpreted to include establishing corporate information policy, analysing for user needs and
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arranging operational information tasks. The commanding and controlling are part of information management too, but as management processes relating to information management personnel, rather than the information itself.
Precursors Managing of information has been happening for years without our calling it information management. Consider some of the institutional environments in which this has formally been taking place.
In the beginning... Two institutions that have always figured prominently in managing information, are the State and the Military. The State has always had a need to manage information. Governance by monarchies has been associated with archives since antiquity. An early archive, well known for the extent of source information that it provided scholars is that of the Assyrian king, Assurbanipal. The clay tablets inscribed during the 7th century BCE contain a wealth of organised information. Administrative records, deeds, correspondence, religious tracts and the like have proved a rich resource for scholars in later centuries from the site at Ninevah3. Four centuries later, the early Ptolemys took a wide enough outlook to establish both an archive and directives for a collection of all Hellenistic literature. This was accomplished by a variety of means including copying, confiscating scroll cargoes, and purloining borrowed copies (setting some precedents that have been followed to this day). This was at the great library at Alexandria4. Papyrus records from the first and second century preserve the term βιβλιφελα meaning keeper of the archive.
3
Now across the river from Mosul, Iraq.
4
Recreated in an international effort as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina . Perhaps this is following the sentiments of the Pharaoh, Ozymandius (Rameses II) who had, according to Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, inscribed at the portals of his library at Thebes between Thoth the god of wisdom and Shesheta the scribe goddess, ‘Dispensary of the soul’.
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The Han dynasty in China during the first century BCE was known for its organisation of administrative material, but collecting and organising material already had a long history in China by then. Inscribed bones from 2 millennia BCE unearthed in recent times may have been from archival collections, in which they accompanied bamboo and wood records that have long since perished - not so the stone libraries of Buddhist text from the seventh century BCE. Lao-Tse, founder of Taoism is possibly the earliest recorded archivist, serving during the Chou dynasty around 600 BCE5. Collection and organisation of records was followed periodically by their destruction in both east and west. Alexandria was sacked on more than one occasion, and the Ch’in emperor ordered the burning of books adverse to the regime. Information management has been within the province of the military ever since the procedures of military strategy were formalised. Among the earliest known tracts on military strategy, is that of a contemporary of Confucius, Wu Sun Tzu. His Ping Fa (the Art of War) has since the 5th century BCE been extended and modified by succeeding generations of warrior-scholars in China. It remains influential in both eastern and western military strategy. Ping Fa pays significant attention to the need for military intelligence. While some of this is covert, most is commonly available information that requires collection, organisation and analysis - just as is the case with defence intelligence and business competitor intelligence systems today.
More recently.... Today’s writers in the different disciplines, have examined the more immediate antecedents of information management, and its derivative, knowledge management, at length. Usually, they are trying to establish definitions and to come to terms with information management in the contemporary environment of government and business. Contributions of a number of recent writers in this area are mentioned at the end of the Chapter. Most make reference in some way to the influence of activities that are seen to be seminal to information management as we know it at present. These are as follows: 5
Among Lao-Tse’s aphorisms from The Way of Lao-Tse are: ‘People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge’ and ‘To know what you do not know is best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease’ Perhaps these thoughts originated with his experience as an information manager.
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• Management theory Since the advent of computer systems in business, management theorists have attempted to absorb the information system into business models. Initially the technology was treated simply as a tool for carrying out business processes such as accounting and inventory control. With the technology permitting integration of the processes, there has been a much greater focus on the information carried by the technology, its rationalisation, and strategies for using it in ways beyond existing processes. Information is seen as a resource that needs to be managed like labour, capital and property. More recently, attention has been paid, not only to the information codified in documents and in computers, but to the knowledge within the personnel of enterprises and their understanding of processes. It is questionable whether this knowledge can be managed in situ. However, human resources management is concerned to get the knowledge from where it is, and utilising information management, to disseminate it for organisational learning.
• Records management The management of internal records such as correspondence and accounts and policy documents for organisations entered the computer age with the development of finding aids that replaced manually produced registers of these documents. With office automation, the documents themselves are now produced in digital form. Records managers and archivists who are the ultimate custodians of the information are presented with the considerable challenge of storing and retrieving integrated repositories of paper, optical digital and magnetic digital information. These integrated document management systems are being implemented as an exercise in information management.
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• Librarianship Understanding of internal library processes has now advanced to the design of systems that integrate acquisitions, cataloguing information retrieval and circulation subsystems. Online retrieval is now routine. However, there continues the significant information management challenge of providing effective and coordinated retrieval from large numbers of databases both internal to libraries and available through networks. Libraries are now faced with the challenge of managing a window to the Internet from their own finding aids, along with a window to the libraries from the Internet.
• Information systems management As transaction processing systems have been extended to provide management information, analysts have had to come to terms with the complexity of providing simplicity! That is, the simplicity of information sought by management. The need for data administration in order to coordinate an enterprise’s information description has become more prominent as a requirement for underpinning decision support and executive information.
• Technological convergence Convergence is often used to describe the removal of the division between computer and telecommunications technology, increasingly referred to as information and communications technology (ICT). It is also used to describe the way in which digital technology has turned what were formerly distinct communication processes, into ones that share the same channel. A simple example is the use of the telephone system for both direct communication by voice and message sending of records by telefacsimile. Convergence has had significant effect on the performance of work in enterprises. For example, where typing, internal mailing and scheduling of meetings were once handled by separate staff on behalf of the supervisor
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requiring them, they will often now all be handled on a desktop workstation by that supervisor (hopefully leaving some time for what the supervisor is actually employed to do!). Convergence has also meant that what were formerly distinct types of documents to data administrators, archivists, records managers and librarians, are in some cases becoming common documents, leading to convergence of their roles in managing these documents.
• Legislation Governments have been grappling with the regulatory environment appropriate for digital information. They have been trying to develop and maintain the principles relating to such matters as protection of intellectual property, freedom of access to government information, privacy of personal records held by enterprises, requirements for retention of documents by enterprises, and the transfer of information across national borders. Consolidating legislation and making it effective is a complex exercise for information management. Its application in organisations requires a clear understanding of the regulatory obligations of both public and private sector organisations within the business community.
• Information Science Whether there is a science of information, remains contentious. What is certain, is that there are many researchers in diverse disciplines ranging from psychology to engineering, from computing to sociology, all trying to further the understanding of information transfer processes. This endeavour may produce some fundamental principles that can be applied to communication (explored in Chapter 3). As this understanding improves, so will its application to the practice of information management.
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The advent of the Internet provides us with a ready window to many information management tools and applications. These are explored in some detail in later chapters. Figure 1.3 shows some examples of contemporary applications on the World Wide Web (WWW, which henceforth we’ll call the Web).
Levels of information management Definitions of information management given in the literature vary according to context. For example, Taylor and Farrell (1992) talk in terms of existential, operational and hybrid-manager definitions. We can view information management simply as:
The process of managing the information needs of an organisation.
Or from an epistemological viewpoint advanced by Cronin and Davenport (1991) as: The utilisation of codified knowledge (symbols, patterns, algorithms) to produce formal representations of information entities,
which
allow
the
automation
of
transaction
processing, decision making and information retrieval.
Much of the writing that endeavours to define information management in recent years has either confused or not identified the different levels of business process at which information management takes place. We have seen the same ambiguities arise with the knowledge management movement, initially because of a lack of distinction between data, information and knowledge, and then because of the situation in which it is to be managed. In other words are we talking about the details of operational procedures, investigation and structuring of an enterprise’s knowledge framework, or planning for utilisation of knowledge as a resource? It seems that if knowledge is to be regarded as something that is manageable, then handling it requires cognisance of organisational culture and practice, and that
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Figure 1.3: Contemporary information management applications
Figure 1.3a: Street directory lookup http://www.whereis.com.au/; image reproduced with permission of Pacific Access Pty Ltd.
Figure 1.3b: Community information service front page http://www.escis.org.uk/
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Figure 1.3c: Stock exchange homepage http://www.nasdaq.com/ © Copyright 2001, The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission
Figure 1.3d: Consolidated access to reference material http://www.xrefer.com/
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sharing, codification, learning and applying knowledge, must be understood within a contextual business model that requires management of information and human resources for knowledge creation. Management of business processes is often described as being at operational, tactical and strategic levels. Diener (1992), while not exactly following this characterisation, delineated technical, analytical and strategic domains of information management. These may alternatively be described as the procedural, assessment, and administrative aspects. In the Technical or narrow operational sense, the following descriptions may be used:
•
The organisation of personal or corporate records.
•
Procedures such as indexing, classification, filing and cataloguing, that are used to provide access to collections of documents, or to other recorded forms of information ranging from historical archives to digital imagery.
•
Control of the description of an organisation’s data through use of a data dictionary.
•
Use of techniques such as collocation and abstracting, and of tools such as software packages for storage and retrieval of collected information.
•
Definition and maintenance of databases that support business analysis.
•
Selection, organisation, control, analysis and dissemination of information by an intermediary for an end-user.
•
Analysis and reduction of information into surrogate form, and organisation and presentation of this form for re-interpretation.
•
Structuring and indexing a file of lessons-learned to support knowledge transfer.
•
Design and maintenance of an enterprise information portal on an intranet.
In each of the preceding definitions, the emphasis is on technique, methodology and procedure. They have in common a requirement for metainformation - the
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information about information that helps to organise the information that is of concern to the person who will ultimately use it. For example, in a database dealing with description of property for a geographical information system, the information of concern to the ultimate or end user is the description of the size of a property, its value and so on. The metainformation is the names and definition of the data elements that contain the property information, and the search protocols necessary for retrieval of that information. In the Analytical sense, the emphasis is on assessment and evaluation, for example:
•
Studies of information needs and use by particular groups.
•
Production of information resource inventories.
•
Determining the requirements of information services and systems.
•
Conducting a knowledge audit to determine the where knowledge resides in an enterprise, and how it may be transferred.
These processes have in common the fact that they are not carrying out operational information management, but are identifying what needs to be carried out, how and why it should be carried out, and to what end - with particular reference to those who are going to use it. If we approach the concept from a wider business-oriented framework, we find that the operational and analytic approaches are addressed, but that emphasis is more on planning, management and administration. To take a Strategic approach:
•
The administration of all manual and automated data, and of all methods used for the communication, manipulation and presentation of information used in the course of doing business.
•
Establishing a learning culture based upon effective recording and communication of knowledge assets, and associating these with external information sources.
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•
A fundamental managerial discipline founded on the conviction that both public and private sector organisations must treat information as a resource, in a manner similar to financial, physical, human and natural resources.
•
Development of strategy and policy for information handling.
•
A means of promoting organisational effectiveness by enhancing the capabilities of the organisation to cope with the demands of its internal and external environments in dynamic, as well as stable conditions; this includes two dimensions:
-
Managing the information process so that the knowledge resources of the organisation, are utilised effectively for organisational decision making.
-
Ensuring that the various types of data an organisation uses, and the various ways that data are handled and processed can support the needs and demands of the information process.
The British Government’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency provides an example that takes into account this delineation by levels. In addressing the role of information management in government departments, it characterised the underlying questions to be addressed by the tasks of information management (CCTA, 1990). These have been adapted and included in a table in Figure 1.4 to illustrate the correlation with the identified levels.
TASK
LEVEL
Determining a department's business aims and objectives
Strategic
Determining information needed to support those aims
Analytic
Identifying information available in a department
Analytic
Establishing differences between needs and provision
Analytic
Ensuring processes that match needs with provision
Technical
Identifying best means of provision
Analytic, Technical
Considering means of further exploitation of information
Strategic
Figure 1.4: Levels of information management
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Further reading Beginning in the 1980s there has been a lot of writing that tries to define what information management is, and what has led to it. Horton and Marchand have tried to explain it in detail coming from a North American perspective of dealing with information as a resource in both government and commercial enterprises. Among their many writings, (Horton, 1985; Marchand & Horton, 1986; and Marchand, 1985) they provide overviews. A comparable approach but with an English perspective, is presented by Wiggins (1988) who conceptualises information management using diagrammatic representations of relationships within an organisation and tabulates the contribution of specialists to particular activities. Cronin has collected and published much seminal material on what constitutes information management (Cronin, 1992). He has also written extensively and influentially on the subject himself. In a relatively recent integrative work (Cronin & Davenport, 1991), information management is seen to rely on codified knowledge to produce formal representations of information entities that facilitate information processes. Taylor & Farrell (1992), consolidate this framework, and claim that there is a growing perception that information management identifies, coordinates and exploits information entities in an organisation for the purpose of using the characteristics of that information to achieve greater value of existing information resources and gain competitive advantage. The terminology used to conceptualise the field has been examined in some depth (Boaden & Lockett, 1991; Trauth, 1989), and it has been explained as the application of information science (Greer, 1987; Diener, 1992). Davis (1995) has considered business information systems and adopted a framework similar to that of this book, in that he considers them within the framework of what he terms operational, tactical and strategic levels of management. However his emphasis is more on systems and their support for business processes, rather than dealing with stages of information transfer and the metainformation that supports them. The book is presented in the context of an employee progressively
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working up through tasks at the different levels. It gives examples of applications of productivity tools such as spreadsheet software to the management process. There are many writings, such as English (1996) that promote information management in terms of utilising a business resource. A film that does the same thing, but which is bolstered by substantial analysis of the processes necessary for doing this is Information resource management (1990). More recently, business has found knowledge to be a more in vogue resource. The intellectual capital of an enterprise is seen to comprise both what is recorded and what is tacit. Understanding the management of this intellectual capital, has occupied a great many authors, among the more influential being Boisot (1998); Choo (1998b); Davenport and Prusak (1998); and Liebowitz (1999). A compilation by Srikantaiah and Koenig (2000) also helps to spell out alternative approaches to knowledge managing knowledge as a resource. Websites that provide links to detailed material in the area include American Productivity and Quality Center (2001); Brint (2001b); and David Skyrme Associates (2001).
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3.3.
Information management Book chapter: ‘Information in organisations’ excerpt
Following the book’s Introduction, there are three chapters within Part A that introduce factors that have been instrumental in shaping the meaning of information management. These chapters are respectively about the people who work in the field (information professions), their research and study areas (information science), and the institutional influence (information in organisations). This Section reproduces a part of the Information in Organisations Chapter, viz.:
Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: a consolidation of
operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: CSU Centre for Information Studies, Chapter 4: Information in organisation, Sections 4.3-4.4, pp. 71-76
It is included to show a couple of different approaches to analysing information use within enterprises.
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75
Information responsibilities in an enterprise The responsibility for provision of the range of information for organisational decision-making is very diffuse. Even in organisations that have attempted to establish the responsibility under a person with a title like chief information officer, there have been difficulties, often because of the variety of structures and vested interests extant in organisations, but also because of a focus on IT rather than information processes. With the increasing proportion of knowledge work and information management within many jobs that have a different primary focus, the need to establish information management responsibilities becomes more pressing. The scope of the information that is to be managed within an enterprise may be defined in the following terms:
• Internal information that is either:
-
Highly structured such as that coming from data in numerical databases or being used for transaction processing.
-
Loosely structured such as identification of knowledge sources and expertise.
-
Minimally structured such as information carried in documents like reports and memoranda.
• External information that is either:
-
Highly structured such as that held in statistical databases or geographic information systems.
-
Minimally structured such as that carried in print publications, news media and film.
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The distinctions between these categories are blurring, as office automation and publishing processes make documentary information more structured in computer form. At the same time, databases formerly confined to structured records now accommodate more data that are less structured in textual form. Nevertheless it is worthwhile to examine the distinction, because the four areas have tended to be the domains of different parts of an enterprise, whereas information management sees them all under one umbrella. Sprague & McNurlin (1993) examined the association of type of information with domain of responsibility in an enterprise. We have derived Figure 4.3 from their work to illustrate that corporate authority for dealing with information sources, systems and services may be widely dispersed. This may lead to problems in effective utilisation of these resources if there are technological solutions that make possible their integration and enhanced use.
INFORMATION
INTERNAL
INFORMATION
RESPONSIBILITY
SOURCES
SOFTWARE SUPPORT
INTERNAL
Information systems
Transaction processes
Process control
Highly structured
department
Organisational units
Database Management Systems Management Information Systems
INTERNAL
Records management
Less structured
Archives
• policy statements
Document management
Document management
• memoranda
Office automation
Word processing
• mail
Text retrieval
Files control
• printed forms
Data mining
Knowledge management
Corporate documents:
Word processing
Lessons leaned files
Micrographics
Expertise collections
Optical digital storage Reprographics Online numerical databases
EXTERNAL
Business analysis
Public databases
Highly structured
Statistics unit
Internet CD databases Public networks Time-sharing services
EXTERNAL
Library
News services
Automated library systems
Less Structured
Business intelligence unit
Films
Online catalogues
Strategic planning support
Printed publications
Environmental scanning
Internet
Current awareness services Monitoring services Videotex systems Push technology
Figure 4.3: Enterprise responsibility for information
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When analysis of this type is combined with identification of who is responsible for management and transfer of knowledge, we are taken in the direction of the rather higher-minded idea of the ‘intelligent organisation’. Such an organisation needs to be able to combine the professional rule-based and practical knowledge that the workers in an organisation have that makes it possible to optimise the efficiency of operations, with the ongoing environmental knowledge that the managers of an organisation use to align its mission and objectives with its capabilities. This implies ongoing organisational learning based upon effective information gathering processes, and a framework within which information may be used to create and apply knowledge from the information sources used. It also implies that effective information retrieval processes are available for reference to the ‘corporate memory’ through facilities such as historical database analysis and records management and archiving systems.
External information scanning
‘...le hasard ne favorise que les esprits prepares’ (Chance favours the prepared mind) L. Pasteur Address given on inauguration of the Faculty of Science, University of Lille, 1854.
Success in business competition is often said to derive from good management of an enterprise’s information resources. Part of this management is the matter of being well informed about ‘the opposition’. This information is often known as business intelligence or competitor intelligence and the process of compiling it is a justifiable concern of management1. When formalised into a corporate intelligence gathering system, collection of competitor intelligence can be regarded as part of an environmental scanning program,
1
Business intelligence and industrial espionage are different matters. The latter refers to covert information gathering and is outside the scope of this text. Here, business intelligence is seen as part of environmental scanning, and having recourse to public information only.
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which considers the outside environment as something broader than simply comprising competitors. Environmental scanning is the process by which information about events and relationships in an enterprise’s outside environment is scanned for the purpose of assisting senior management in its task of planning an organisation’s future course of action. It requires:
• Gathering of information about an organisation’s external environment. • Analysis and interpretation of this information in the context of an organisation’s business plan. • Use of analysed intelligence in the organisation’s decision making.
Figure 4.4 illustrates the environment that the scanning process endeavours to cover. The types of General Environment information that may prove useful in setting an organisation’s direction include:
• Societal
information such as demographics relating to population movements,
life
expectancies,
consumer
activism,
environmental awareness and leisure utilisation. • Technological information relating to new products, technology transfer from research to marketplace, automation applications and effects on productivity, research and development programs of government, universities and scientific organisations. • Economic
information such income distribution and disposable incomes, employment levels, inflation, interest rates and other financial indicators.
• Political
information relating to potential changes of government, and regulatory framework for such matters as trade, employment and financial services.
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General Environment
Operating Environment
Internal Environment (External information)
Competitor intelligence
Environmental scanning Figure 4.4: Environmental scanning
The
Operating
Environment
concentrates
on
intelligence
about
an
organisation’s competitors and consists of information about:
• Production
such as anything to do with product range and evaluation, quality control, packaging, delivery, production capacity, and breakdown tolerance.
• Organisation
such as ownership, control and management structure, extent of decentralisation, directors, links with other companies, facilities, financing, and asset return.
• Marketing
such as the extent of advertising budgets, the placement of product information for target markets, market share, pricing policies and discounts, service policies and performance, and customer distribution.
• Personnel
such as the range of human resources employed, their remuneration, the degree of movement in the workforce, the state of manager-labour relations, and the decision makers in organisations.
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Therefore we may say that POMP covers the more specific environment of competitor intelligence, and STEP the wider environment beyond the immediate concerns of the competition.
Systems for environmental scanning Since Aguilar (1967) investigated in depth the process of scanning the business environment, many models have been put forward for formalising the process. Some have been expressed in a cyclical manner so that the collection and analysing of information is followed by derivation of intelligence, which is disseminated, and leads to modification through feedback of the requirements for further information. Most see that the framework in which scanning is carried out may take place in different modes. For example, Aguilar’s original suggestions for frameworks were simplified by Fahey & King (1977) into irregular, regular, and continuous modes. In Figure 4.5, we illustrate an extension of the characteristics of these modes.
IRREGULAR STIMULUS
REGULAR
Crisis initiated
Decision and issue
Ad hoc
Periodically updated
CONTINUOUS Planning process oriented
oriented OPERATION
Structured data collection and processing
SOURCES
Primarily people, some
Documentary & personal
Primarily documentary,
Specific identified matters
Specific identified matters
Environment in general,
of interest, primarily POMP
of interest, POMP and
primarily STEP
documentary SCOPE
some personal
STEP INDUCEMENT
Reactive
Proactive
Proactive
INFORMATION
Retrospective
Primarily current
Prospective
Current and near-term
Near-term
Long-term
COLLECTION DECISION TIME
future ORGANISATIONAL
A variety of different
A variety of different
Unit dedicated to the
IMPLEMENTATION
participants
participants
process
Figure 4.5: Scanning modes
The frequency and formality with which the process of gaining this information is carried out also depends upon the economic means of an organisation. For example it has been differentiated at 3 different levels (J. L. Horton, 1995) as follows:
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• Low level This includes swapping gossip with suppliers, customers and vendors and others who cross a market; reading local and national media, and subscribing to and reading key trade journals and newsletters reporting an industry in which a company competes.
• Mid-range This includes the low-level approach plus: - Developing information
and
implementing
strategy
to
an
disseminate
integrated
organisational
business
environment
information regularly. - Reviewing information about individuals who are key to organisational survival and success, for example owners, employees and customers. - Maintaining a briefing document on key business issues. - Automating supplier, distributor and customer contact. - Maintaining one or more online data services focused on the company’s business environment. - Using work group information systems to place business environmental data on terminals for employees to consult as needed. - Providing company-wide email. - Appointing a person to coordinate and digest data flows to resource files. Horton (1995, p. 112) calls this person an information editor.
• High level This adds the following to the actions already listed:
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-
A department to analyse and report business environmental information company-wide; this department would tie into company communications lines and would maintain a digest of events classified by key business environment variables.
-
Company-wide meetings to update employees on the business environment and its implications for business.
-
Key measures for business environmental change and company response.
-
Real-time reporting of a company’s business environment to special groups to help them understand company actions.
-
Regular surveys, focus groups and panels with key individuals in the business environment who have direct economic power over a company.
-
Ongoing investigations of change in the business environment and how the company should prepare for it.
-
Retreats for managers in which the state of the company and the business environment is presented.
There are several institutional frameworks possible for carrying out the process. If a specific unit is to be established, it may be within a department equivalent to corporate planning and have a name something like the strategic intelligence unit. This provides the advantage of being close to senior management, but may suffer from lack of contact with other divisions in an organisation. An alternative may be an information analysis centre, physically remote from senior management, and possibly suffering politically because of that, but perhaps more neutral and accessible about information gathering from the organisation as a whole. On a smaller scale of operation, management may have to look at employing an outside agency to carry out the procedures. This may present the problem of the agency not fully appreciating or attending to the organisation’s needs. Alternatively the role may be distributed throughout departments in an organisation, or taken to the extent of writing it in as part of individual duty statements. To be effective, such an
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approach needs considerable coordination. This may push an organisation in the direction of establishing a unit. In all cases, the structure will be set up in an attempt to resolve the problems of reliability and credibility of intelligence being gleaned, evaluation time required to deal with the information, and appropriateness of the product for senior management.
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3.4.
Information management Book chapter: Operational domain
Part B of the book is the most extensive. It includes ten chapters that describe the various techniques employed in managing information as it proceeds through a life cycle of use. Of concern to information management at each step is information about the information traversing the cycle - metainformation. Therefore as information is created, distributed, organised, retrieved, presented and disposed, at each stage there is metainformation that is the principal point of interest of the information manager. The chapters concentrate upon the metainformation that must be managed to make information more usable. A specific matter that must be addressed with information organisation is the differentiation between describing the medium carrying information, and the description of the information content itself. In this book they are described respectively as the agent and the content. Information organisation of agents makes use of techniques that include data modelling, cataloguing and markup. Information organisation of content makes use of indexing and classification. In each case the metainformation may be controlled by tools that are fundamental for information management. In the case of agents, these tools include data dictionaries and authority files. In the case of content they include thesauri and classification schemes. An extract from Chapter 10 in Part B is reproduced, viz.:
Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: a consolidation of
operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: CSU Centre for Information Studies, Chapter 10: Control of recorded information by content, Sections 10.1, pp. 218-229
It is included to show how the concept of classification is introduced within the broader context of operational information management.
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Control of recorded information by content In Chapter 8 we looked at metainformation procedures that helped to control agents of information delivery. Then in Chapter 9, we examined the way that content analysis either by people or software is used to describe what documents are about. Now we will consider formal metainformation that helps to control description of content. We examine tools used for ordering representations of knowledge, namely classification schemes and thesauri. We also look at some associations between these tools, before considering how knowledge representation is applied in confined domains of systems in order to make use of expertise. The way that knowledge is represented in an expert system may be closer to Plato’s knowledge as ‘justified true belief’, than are the categories that represent knowledge expressed in documents. Categories used for documents, often reflect the limits and tendencies of the information in the range of documents rather than any substantive reality beyond the documents. Classification categories and index terms are both instruments of classification. However, the term classification in the sense that it is used for information management is often confined to the categorisation approach. In that case, some form of notation (symbols) is used to represent categories in a classification scheme, as opposed to use of a thesaurus where the categories are expressed in terms of descriptors (strings of index words) and their interrelationships.
Classification Before we look at schemes for classification, consider how fundamental classification is to communication. How much distinction is there between the way you classify knowledge in your head, and the way you classify information (or have it classified for you), when it is in a text or other information object?
Categories We categorise as we think. We categorise in order to order the world that we perceive or imagine. We categorise reality subjectively. We also record our knowledge
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of reality and categorise that too1. The categorisations are different. The philosopher of science, Popper (1972, p. 106) saw the objective content of thought, expressed as external shared categorisations as a ‘third world’. He distinguished them from the World 1 of material things, and the World 2 of subjective consciousness. His World 3 is represented by the totality of recorded thought. It is this recorded thought that we have focussed upon as information in these chapters. Coming to terms with categorisation is of fundamental importance to human thought, and a question that philosophers have wrestled with at length. Under what forms of thought may different phenomena be subsumed? Aristotle borrowed ‘categoria’ from legal parlance where it meant accusation, and extended it to mean anything that could be asserted truly or falsely about anything (Urmson, 1975, p. 60). He arrived at ten fundamental classes of reality: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, posture, state, action and passion. He considered that any assertion could be placed in one of these categories. For example, the expressions ‘I am warm’, ‘I am a dancer’, and ‘I am in Sydney’, each contain the subject ‘I’ with different predicates. These predicates may be categorised respectively as quality, substance and place. Aristotle identified a limited, but arguably fundamental set of predicate categories, which were generally accepted by the philosophically inclined, for about two thousand years. Then along came Kant, who in different writings considered that three, then five, then twelve different ways of conceiving of objects were required, in order to make different logical functions of judgement applicable to them (Guyer, 1992, p.134). As twelve ways, these could be expressed as four categories (quantity, quality, relation and modality) each with three sub-categories. For example the three types of quantity were universal (‘everyone is mortal’), particular (‘some dogs are black’), and singular (‘this cat is hungry’). Kant’s categories are controversial. After all, he seemed to disagree with himself. However, his approach to categorisation has proved particularly influential.
1
Or as W.S Gilbert would have it, in Pirates of Penzance, 1879, Act 1: ‘I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical...’
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There is a difficulty with these approaches to categorisation, because it does not seem possible to decide whether they relate to reality (are ontological, as the philosophers might say), or whether they relate to the expression of reality. This is an issue that hovers in the background behind the practical process of classification of recorded knowledge. Is it reality that is to be classified, or is it the description of reality? Because information management has been mostly concerned with knowledge that has been documented, it is the description of reality that has been its concern. Now that knowledge management is on the agenda, an implication is that Popper’s World 2 must also be managed. But can private meaning be managed? If eminent philosophers cannot settle on a way of categorisation, it is not too surprising that the rest of us have had some difficulty with it. A significant aspect of our difficulty is the process of transferring categorisation of knowledge in our heads, to categorisation of information that is recorded. This process has to make use of a language of some sort. Before the categories established by that language might be assigned, we have the problem of using the language to express the categorisation that we have in our heads. Aitchison (1994) has explored this, pointing out that our mental lexicon does not correspond with what is written down. Although you can provide a dictionary definition of a word from your head, the same word can readily change in mental interpretation because you contextualise according to many attributes. For example, there is a dictionary definition for ‘blood’. However if it is used in a phrase such as ‘he would shed blood for the cause’, the conception of what is understood may vary from literal to metaphorical depending upon what context the understander brings to the word. We do not necessarily have to turn to metaphor for examples. As McGarry (1993) points out when considering whether a ‘house’ is indeed a ‘home’, it is necessary to distinguish between connotation and denotation2. Denotation is the shared understanding of what a house is in World 3. Connotation is the private meaning of World 2. There is a World 2 for house, but the personal associations may bring it much closer to home! As a final example, think again about Chapter 1, where even the World 3 understanding of ‘information management’ has considerable variation of interpretation.
2
A house is not a home being the title of the memoirs of the New York madam (and author), Polly Adler.
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We categorise things in the shared information world in order to organise them for communication, but the categorisation process will differ depending upon the context of use, along with the reason for categorising. The categorisation will also depend upon whether we are categorising objects, or information about the objects. Take for example spare parts for motor vehicles. A supplier, who has to keep a warehouse full of these, may categorise them by size, by make of vehicle to which they correspond, by year corresponding to models, by a part number, or by combinations of these. A data base that keeps an inventory of the parts may provide access points for retrieval of these parts using some of the same categories, but probably also has differing categories such as ‘name of part’ or ‘purpose of part’, for information retrieval. What the object is for, is described by some categories; what the object is, is described by others. That is a reason why it is useful to differentiate content and agent in description. A similarly problematical situation may apply in supermarkets where the arrangement of food items on the shelves, may follow a different categorisation from the information about the food items held in a database. For example there may be a categorisation based upon frequency of purchase in the database that is not reflected in the floor arrangement. Of course the database has the advantage of permitting multiple categorisations of the information, whereas the supermarket will find it challenging to present tomatoes in with the fruits, the sauces, the fresh food, the vegetables, the objects that are roughly spherical, the red (or green) foods, the drink mixers, the stock from Mexico, the stock beginning with ‘T’, the stock delivered weekly, and so on... Is it easier to resolve these difficulties, when the content being described is in documents rather than objects that we eat or use as tools? In information repositories like libraries the objects such as their books are the information carriers, rather than the objects that the information is about. The books are not being categorised; what they are about is3. So the managers can decide upon a standard classification system, and arrange their books on shelves according to that system. Is it that simple? Can the book on growing tomatoes be classified in the same way as the book on tomato sauce? Will the person who wants the tomato sauce book for a cooking recipe look in the same place as the person who wants to use tomato sauce in their next screenplay? Again, the
3
Unless perhaps the classification scheme is according to size: big, little; or colour!
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people who want the information are approaching it from an assortment of contexts. Unless they take the time to understand the standard classification scheme, they may well not find their way to what they want. The extent of knowledge of a person who is establishing the categories will influence the categorisation. A community that lives near the equator will have far fewer categories (or words representing them) for snow, than a community that lives near one of the Earth’s Poles. The extent to which you may categorise the images of Figure 10.1 in different ways will depend upon your knowledge of what is depicted. You may categorise by size or shape, but with more knowledge you may categorise by origin, or purpose or longevity. If you are an animal fancier, there may be all manner of ways of organising; or they may all simply be creatures (or snowflakes!) to you.
Figure 10.1: Organising animals
Producing classification schemes should be assisted if we spend some time analysing the way that we mentally represent objects. Unfortunately we must then confront the significant difficulty of carrying out the analysis with the same instrument (our brain), which we use to do the mental representation. We are trying to understand
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something using the instrument that is doing the understanding. This seems a bit like trying to pull yourself up with your own shoelaces. This is something that concerns not a few, although Roszak (1994), who champions the notion of human ideas as opposed to mere computer ‘intelligence’, thinks that since the mind cannot capture its own nature, it won’t be able to invent a machine that is its equal, or its successor. The philosophical issues have not inhibited the development of practical classification schemes, some examples of which are considered in the following section.
Classification schemes We can contrast natural classification, which has an empirical basis and derives from scientific observation, with artificial classification, which implies a priori ideas of what is important. The latter is more likely to be applied to collections of records or documents where the purpose of classification is to make information available. Kingdom Phylum Class Subclass Order Family Genus Species
Animalia Chordata Mammalia Marsupialia Diprotodonta Phascolarctidae Phascolarctos cinereus
Figure 10.2 Taxonomic classification for koala
The foremost example of natural classification is the taxonomic system used in the biological sciences, and deriving from the work of Linnaeus. This system of taxonomy endeavours to classify animals and plants according to their observed features. Figure 10.2 shows how a koala is treated in the taxonomic system. On the other hand, artificial classification tends to impose a worldview of what is important. Through the ages, encyclopaedias provide an interesting reflection through their classification schemes, of cultural values and influences prevalent at the time of their production. McGarry (1993, p. 146) has pointed out the dominant place of philosophy in the expression of the Greeks, and how it became something merely ancillary to theology in later periods. He notes that Diderot, the French encyclopaedist, vaunted his work as setting the agenda for the new era of rationalism and
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enlightenment, and he gives an example of the priorities and worldview expressed in an Islamic encyclopaedia of Ibn Qutayba c.828:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Power War Nobility Character Learning and eloquence
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Asceticism Friendship Prayers Food Women
Other types of classification schemes that are focused on relatively small domains of knowledge may strive to be natural. However if they are in areas such as the social sciences, there is the difficulty of being precise about observed categories. A typical example is a classification of industries of the type used by government agencies in many countries. An extract from NAICS, the North American Industrial Classification System, is shown in Figure 10.3. For example we see ‘Computer facilities management services’ classified within ‘Computer systems design and related services’. We imagine it could equally have a place within ‘Facilities management services’ if this were provided for elsewhere in the scheme.
414 54141
Specialized Design Services Interior Design Services
54142
Industrial Design Services
54143
Graphic Design Services
54149 5415
Other Specialized Design Services Computer Systems Design and Related Services
54151
Computer Systems Design and Related Services
541511
Custom Computer Programming Services
541512
Computer Systems Design Services
541513
Computer Facilities Management Services
541519 5416 54161 541611
Other Computer Related Services Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services Management Consulting Services Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
541612
Human Resources and Executive Search Consulting Services
541613
Marketing Consulting Services
541614
Process, Physical Distribution, and Logistics Consulting Services
541618
Other Management Consulting Services
54162
Environmental Consulting Services
54169
Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
5417
Scientific Research and Development Services
Figure 10.3: Extract from 1997 U.S. NAICS Codes & Titles http://www.census.gov/epcd/naics/naicscod.txt
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Information repositories have always had to adopt classification schemes in order to organise their documents for records management purposes. Where the repositories are relatively specialised, they may adopt schemes such as the one for which there is an extract shown in Figure 10.4. In this case, mandate, functions, and activities rather than organisational structure, form the basis for the hierarchical subject approach. The top level has related functions grouped by subject. For example, ‘finance and budget’ information is grouped together. In the example we see ‘human resources’ as the top level function; a secondary level is indicated by a digit added to the alphabetical characters of the primary; a third level permits identifying the subject matter, which may be a name, a title or a number, and reflects the individual needs of those working with the records.
Human resources HR
Personnel HR-1
Appraisal HR-2
In-service HR-3: Kaminsky, Rolf #245-1235
In-service HR-3
In-service HR-3: Lee, Bing #243-0014
Top level
2nd level
Loadings HR-8
Base level
Figure 10.4: Records and information management classification scheme for filing
Many government authorities use relatively generic classification schemes for records, based upon functions within organisations, though sometimes adapted for the particular subject needs of the organisation. An extract from a department’s scheme is shown in Figure 10.5. Great amounts of time and effort have been expended upon classification schemes for libraries, because their collection coverage in many cases must represent an overview of the documentation of all knowledge. An outline of the main classes of the U.S. Library of Congress scheme (LC), one of the more heavily used schemes, is shown in Figure 10.6. Classification schemes used in repositories tend towards the
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artificial (see ‘naturalness’ below), because they are trying to reflect how much is documented about subject areas more so than how much is known about these areas. PRO 0-0 PROCUREMENT 1-0 Bids and Contracts 2-0 Catalogs 3-0 Equipment and Supplies 4-0 Property Accountability 4-1 Equipment Inventory 4-2 Supply Inventory 5-0 Storage and Warehousing 6-0 Surplus Property 6-1 Acquisition 6-2 Boards of Survey 6-3 Disposal PBM 0-0 PROGRAM BUDGET MANAGEMENT 1-0 Plans and Policy 2-0 Execution Schedules 3-0 Program Objectives 4-0 Review and Analysis
Figure 10.5: Extract from U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration classification scheme for office management systems http://www.oshaslc.gov/OshDoc/Directive_data/ADM_12_1_CH-8.html
A
--
B
--
GENERAL WORKS PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY. RELIGION
C
--
AUXILIARY SCIENCES OF HISTORY
D
--
HISTORY: GENERAL AND OLD WORLD
E
--
HISTORY: AMERICA
F
--
HISTORY: AMERICA
G
--
GEOGRAPHY. ANTHROPOLOGY. RECREATION
H
--
SOCIAL SCIENCES
J
--
POLITICAL SCIENCE
K
--
LAW
L
--
EDUCATION
M
--
MUSIC AND BOOKS ON MUSIC
N
--
FINE ARTS
P
--
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Q
--
SCIENCE
R
--
MEDICINE
S
--
AGRICULTURE
T
--
TECHNOLOGY
U
--
MILITARY SCIENCE
V
--
NAVAL SCIENCE
Z
--
BIBLIOGRAPHY. LIBRARY SCIENCE. INFORMATION RESOURCES (GENERAL)
Figure 10.6: LC Classification Scheme outline of main classes http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html
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Indexing as we described it in Chapter 9 is a form of classification, since classification can be any approach to putting labels on objects. However, in the library environment, indexing (in the sense of assigning subject headings or descriptors without using a notation) to represent multiple ideas in documents, is differentiated from classification - undertaking a conceptual analysis of what a document as a whole is about, using an established limited set of categories represented by a notation.
Classification scheme features A fully developed classification scheme is sophisticated metainformation. If you are developing such a system, there are a number of principles to be taken into account. These include:
•
Notation When indexing in the form of keywords or descriptors is used to indicate subject content, then the subsequent arrangement of these as entry terms is in sorted alphabetical order for purposes of look-up. However, when systematic classification is used, a set of symbols substitutes for the arrangement of index terms. The way in which these symbols may be combined is important, so that as far as possible for users there is a selfevident order. For example the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system uses a numerical decimal notation, and sequencing can be numerical. Other systems use a combination of alphabet and numbers, which has the advantage of a greater range of symbols with which to represent numbers, so the notation may be kept relatively short. This is important in the use of synthetic systems (described below under Class detail) to minimise the length of constructed notations. A notation, such as that of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) permits the use of combinations of alphabet, numerals and a variety of other symbols (such as ‘/’,’+’,’:’) that have semantic content. Although this allows more flexibility of categorisation and synthesis of categories, it presents
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difficulties for category lookup in sorted lists where users must be familiar with sort values of the punctuation symbols.
•
Structure A classification scheme is implemented in two parts: a set of schedules that show the categorisation arranged by the notations applied to the categories, and a relative index to the schedules that enables lookup of concepts. The scheme may also have tables and instructions on how to enumerate or synthesise the schedules. Extracts from a schedule, in this case that of LC as produced by LC’s Cataloging Distribution Service, appear in Figure 10.7.
Subclass J Subclass JA Subclass JC Subclass JF Subclass JK Subclass JL Subclass JN Subclass JQ
Subclass JS Subclass JV Subclass JX (obsolete) Subclass JZ
General legislative and executive papers Political science (general) Political theory Political institutions and public administration – General Political institutions and public administration – United States Political institutions and public administration – Canada, West Indies, Mexico, Central and South America Political institutions and public administration – Europe Political institutions and public administration – Asia, Arab countries, Islamic countries, Africa, Atlantic Ocean islands, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Ocean islands Local government. Municipal government Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration International law, see KZ International relations
Figure 10.7a: Extract from LC Classification outline Class J – Political science
Subclass JC JC11-(607) JC11-(607) JC47 JC49 JC51-93 JC109-121 JC131-273 JC177-(178) JC311-314 JC319-323 JC327 JC328.2 JC328.6 JC329 JC345-347 JC348-497 JC(501)-(607)
Political theory State. Theories of the state Oriental state Islamic state Ancient state Medieval state Modern state Thomas Paine Nationalism. Nation state Political geography Sovereignty Consent of the governed Violence. Political violence Patriotism Symbolism Forms of the state Purpose, functions, and relations of the state
Figure 10.7b: Extract from LC Classification outline Class J – Political science
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•
Naturalness Document classification systems are essentially artificial, because they endeavour to reflect what has been written about, rather than what is. The term literary warrant is used to describe the notion of classifying according to what is in the literature, rather than according to a theoretical or empirical substantiation of reality. For example, Dewey’s original DDC did relatively little to accommodate documentation outside the then western Christian tradition since it was based upon the literature of that tradition. This partiality has been addressed in later editions of the scheme, but is modulated by the influence of integrity (see below). Some schemes have more artificiality4 than others. Of systems that deal with all of knowledge, the Bliss5 system is often held up as an example of one that minimises artificiality and approaches naturalness. Artificial systems inevitably reflect the biases of the creators. If they follow literary warrant, the system will reflect the literature of the culture in which they are operating.
•
Class detail This means the extent to which any particular category may be elaborated to its subcategories. Classification systems that endeavour to come up with a single notation for each individual concept, encounter the problem of enumeration. They must provide a distinct code for each concept using the assigned class structure. They also have to come to terms with the problem of accommodating new concepts within an existing notation and with producing
4
Depending upon your purpose, you may be as artificial as you like. Consider this ancient Chinese classification of animals from the pen of Jorg Luis Borges: ‘Animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, and (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.’
From Other Inquisitions: 1937-1952, Univ. Texas Press, Austin., 1964. 5
Henry Bliss died in 1955. His classification has been maintained. For example see Bliss Bibliographic Classification 1977-1993, 2d ed. / J. Mills & V. Broughton, Butterworths, London.
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notation of unwieldy length. Because literary warrant is to be accommodated, there will often be the problem of what Ranganathan called phase relationships. For example a classification scheme may have a category for ‘nineteenth century poetry’, and a category for ‘Egyptology’, but how does it deal with ‘influence of Egyptology on nineteenth century poetry’? Similarly there may be categories for ‘science’, for ‘religion’ and ‘football’, but how does it deal with a text on ‘science and religion in Melbourne football’? A way of dealing with this difficulty is to use synthetic classification in order to establish more detail. This means to have a notation that includes some symbols that indicate linking of concepts. DDC, which was the first major classification system developed for libraries, is essentially enumerative, bearing in mind that it was produced initially with shelf arrangement of books in mind. However, over time, it has adopted synthetic capability through devices such as tables, which indicate where categories may be linked. The UDC, which was initiated by Otlet and La Fontaine from Belgium, based itself upon the decimal approach of the fifth edition of Dewey’s classification, but influenced by the theories such as those of Ranganathan, it introduced synthesis, using symbols such as the following: :
to represent relations
e.g.
669.14:621.791 Steel welding
+
to indicate combinations
e.g.
669.14+669.71 Steel and aluminium
/
to indicate a number range
e.g.
22/28
Christian religions
=
language
e.g.
655=82
Printing in Russian
""
time
e.g.
327"18"
International relations in the eighteenth century
This facility reduces the problem of accommodating new numbers, which presents difficulties in enumerative systems. Notation can of course, lead to much longer sets of characters, and sequencing of the different connecting symbols does not come easily to many people, but the system lends itself to computer processing, because like indexing terms, the notation components can readily be combined for information retrieval. Ranganathan’s Colon Classification system was initiated in India in 1933. He sought an underlying systematic approach for assigning categories,
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and his achievement of this was through facet analysis. He arrived at fundamental categories of Personality, Matter, Energy, Space and Time (PMEST)6. One notational representation of them is as follows: Category
Notational representation
Personality Matter Energy Space
, ; : .
Time
’
This would result in creation of a synthetic number like 234;17:55.73’N for ‘map cataloguing in US university libraries in the twentieth century’. (234 for university libraries, 17 for maps, 55 for cataloguing, 73 for the USA, and N for C20th)
•
Subdivisions We saw that a variety of symbols may be used to increase the utility of synthetic classification. Enumerative schemes can benefit from a certain amount of synthesis, without resorting to introduction of many symbols. For example the DDC in its more recent manifestations, makes provision for enumerating numbers in a standard way according to common subdivisions for content relating to areas, languages, persons, racial and ethnic groups. It also provides for what are known as the standard subdivisions. These include: -01 -03 -05 -06 -07 -08
Philosophy and theory Dictionaries, encyclopaedias, concordances Serial publications Organisations Study and teaching Collections and anthologies
You can see from these that there is a confusion of the information content and information agent, despite the fact that distinguishing them for purposes of description is considered important. This is a pragmatic approach adopted in some classification systems, which endeavours to
6
Which might lead to some difficulty when dealing with e=mc2
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provide for the grouping of material of a particular type, as well as material on particular subject areas. The subdivisions are applied to base numbers, and instructions are given about how a base number should be modified. For example in the DDC category 781.33 which represents serialism in music composition, subdivisions may be used to enumerate it using the subdivisions shown above .330 1-.330 9. In contrast, the category 781.34 which represents computer composition is enumerated not from the standard subdivisions, but from another area of the tables. In this case it is with the numbers following 00 in the 004-006 area that represent computer science.
•
Integrity Because knowledge interrelationship as expressed in documentation is in a constant state of flux, new editions of major classification schemes must be produced periodically to reflect change. The integrity of the systematisation is a significant factor for institutions that propose to use the schemes. This means that the relative positioning of categories reflected in the notation does not change much from one edition to another. For example a system may wish to categorise ‘motion pictures’ under ‘leisure’ in one edition and change it to ‘business’ in the next. If it resists such change, the organisation that maintains a scheme may increase support among institutions that use the scheme, because major changes have expensive implications for reclassification of documents.
Classification schemes on the Internet The resources on the Internet cover the whole field of knowledge, and many approaches are being implemented to assist with resource discovery. One approach is to establish a site that has a classification scheme that uses hypertext links to point to other sites. A well-known early example of such an approach using its own system of categorisation on the World Wide Web is Yahoo (2001). There are now many sites that
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are applying formal classification schemes as pointers to other resources7. Figure 10.8 depicts part of such a site. HTML implementation lends itself to personal classification systems, so although the likes of DDC and UDC have been put into effect, there are many user-centred applications that are more focused. These provide subject-specific windows into the Internet, and are an important part of information management for external resources in organisations. The insertion of metainformation into Web sites using schema such as Dublin Core (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, 2001) as illustrated in Chapter 7.5, makes it possible to assign multiple categories to a single site. Therefore, a site could be classified according to a specialist scheme such as that of the Association for Computing Machinery, and also a classification code as per DDC, UDC or other examples shown in Figure 7.21. This information may be stored in repeating subject elements. If discrimination between these elements were implemented in search engines, it would permit different contextual views of the same site.
Figure 10.8: Extract from Dutch Electronic Subject Service site using classified arrangement http://www.kb.nl/dutchess/nbc_main.html
7
A directory to sites using classification http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/CTW.htm
schemes
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at
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3.5.
Information management Book chapter: Analytical domain
Part C of the book deals with analytical information management. It includes four chapters that emphasise procedures for determining the needs of information users, and the ways in which information systems, sources and services are identified and evaluated. One chapter deals with determination of needs of information users with sections on information seeking behaviour, and consideration of some examples of user environments. A second chapter deals with information resources analysis, looking at approaches to identifying and mapping and valuing information. A third chapter gives an overview of systems analysis with brief examples of data and process modelling. The final chapter of this section is about evaluation, and looks at evaluation approaches for the overall information management function, for information systems, and for particular operations. An extract from Chapter 18 in Part C is reproduced, viz.:
Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: a consolidation of
operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: CSU Centre for Information Studies, Chapter 18, Section 18; 18.1, pp. 389-403.
It is included to show how examples of operational evaluation are provided, so that they can give an overview that may be applied in different performance appraisal contexts after introducing more detailed material.
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Evaluation
… come, give us a taste of your quality … Shakespeare, Hamlet Act II, scene 2
In part B of this work, we examined a number of information management operations (creation, distribution, and so on), and here we will look at ways those operations may be evaluated. We will then adopt a more expansive view to look at the utility of an information service as a whole, and at assessment of information support for business processes. The users of a service or system may see it in terms of capability or effectiveness - essentially what outputs it can provide for them, and how well. On the other hand, the managers may see evaluation in terms of overall performance measurement across operations. This certainly includes an interest in what the users think of processes contributing to effectiveness. It also requires an interest in evaluating the services with respect to business objectives. This entails a combination of assessing whether the right resource has been applied, and whether it has been employed in the right way. Both the users and the managers have an abiding interest in evaluation so that the provision of information sources, services and systems may be improved through better understanding, or justified in terms of ongoing need and benefit. For a service as a whole the evaluation may be of inputs, processes or outputs. Input measurement in a sense is an indication of how much activity is being expended upon a service, processes may be measured by looking at the operational elements in terms of their efficiency, and outputs may be measured in terms of their effectiveness (the extent to which they fulfil objectives) or impact (the extent to which they provide benefits). To take a call centre as an example of an information service, evaluation of inputs may mean comparing staffing requirements at particular periods. Evaluation of process may mean comparing wait times for callers, or capacity for presenting information on display screens. Evaluation of output could involve customer perceptions of how well questions had been answered. Taylor (1986) considered a variety of applications of how information adds value within information systems. We showed a table of value-adding options that we derived
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from his work back at Figure 16.4. He developed a model that may be applied to different types of information process, each of which may be employed for information provision in the organisational contexts of data processing operations, office information systems, information centres and libraries, and knowledge centres. The example applications may be drawn from operation of any information resource, and could be applied for example to:
•
A lessons-learned database for knowledge management.
•
A recordkeeping finding aid.
•
An enterprise parts inventory.
•
An email facility.
•
An abstracting and indexing service.
•
A decision support system.
In each case, an evaluation process may be applied to determine the effectiveness with which the respective values are being added to the so-called interfaces, bearing in mind that these need not be a human-computer interfaces. We now move from Taylor’s analysis of value-adding to look at some specific approaches to evaluation for operational information management. You will see that what are described as added values to interfaces in his model, are often represented among the operational evaluation criteria that follow, even though the way that they are expressed may vary from application to application.
Evaluation methods for operations In Part B, we looked at operational information management as a process that concerned itself with stages in the handling of information. Here we will examine some examples of evaluation that have been applied to the different stages.
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Software in general Because many of the operational applications of information management utilise software, it is natural that software quality evaluation should play a part in their evaluation. International standards have been developed for software product quality determination, and approaches to evaluation (International Standards Organization & International
Electrotechnical
Commission,
2001-
;
International
Standards
Organization & International Electrotechnical Commission, 1998-2001). The particular quality characteristics that have been prescribed are:
•
Functionality These are the operative characteristics of software expressed as follows: - Suitability:
is it appropriate for its specified task?
- Accuracy:
is the information it conveys right or to agreed results.
- Interoperability:
ability of the deliverable to interact with specified systems.
- Compliance:
adherence to related standards, conventions or regulations in laws.
- Security:
ability to prevent unauthorised access to data or programs.
•
Reliability These are measures of how dependable the software is expressed as follows: - Maturity:
attributes of the deliverable that bear on the frequency of failure by faults.
- Fault tolerance:
ability to maintain a specified level of performance in cases of software faults or of
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infringement of its specified interface. - Recoverability:
ability to re-establish its level of performance and recovery of data affected by some sort of failure.
•
Usability These characteristics describe the ease with which software can be put to use: - Understandability: measurement
of
the
user’s
effort
for
recognising the logical concept and its applicability for its purpose. - Learnability:
measurement of the user’s effort for learning its application.
- Operability:
measurement of the user’s effort to operate and control the deliverable.
•
Efficiency These criteria are measures of how economical the software is with respect to: - Time behaviour:
measurement of response & processing times and performance of functions & requests.
- Response behaviour: amount of resources used and the duration of such use in performing particular functions.
•
Maintainability These characteristics describe attributes relating to upkeep of software as follows:
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- Analysability:
attributes that bear on the effort needed for diagnosis of deficiencies or cause of failures, or identification of parts to be modified.
- Changeability:
attributes that bear on the effort needed for modification, fault removal or environmental change.
- Stability:
attributes that bear on the risk of unexpected effect of modifications.
- Testability:
attributes that bear on the effort needed for validation of the modified deliverable.
•
Portability These attributes describe the extent to which the software may be moved and adjusted to different platforms as follows:
-
Adaptability:
attributes that bear on the opportunity for its adaptation to different specified environments without applying other actions or means than those provided for the purpose of the deliverable.
-
Installability:
effort needed to install the deliverable in a specified environment.
-
Conformance:
attributes that make the deliverable adhere to standards or conventions relating to portability.
-
Replaceability:
attributes that bear on the opportunity and effort of using a deliverable in place of another deliverable.
These quality characteristics provide features that may be evaluated whatever the system. However, there are many other approaches to evaluation that are more
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specific to applications of particular operational procedures. Depending upon the type of operational information management involved, some of these may be applied irrespective of whether software is employed. We will now examine examples at different stages of the information management continuum.
Creation of forms When looking at document creation in Chapter 5, we considered business records including forms. If we are to evaluate forms used for business records one approach is to utilise standard checklists that are applied to interface design, when the interfaces are applied to document creation. For example, the ISO series on ergonomic requirements for visual display terminals (International Standards Organization, 1992-2000) includes a procedure for assessing the applicability of, and adherence to different aspects of the standard. This procedure is structured to enable a checklist approach to each, and can be used as part of forms evaluation. The applicability test determines whether it is relevant to test for a particular recommendation, then adherence tests the extent to which a recommendation is observed. Applicability is first employed with system description, to see for example whether it includes an account of form-filling. If it is decided that form completion is part of system description, assessment proceeds thus:
•
Documented evidence
-
Applicability:
work flow analysis may have shown that fields should be grouped in certain combinations, appropriate for when different users are entering their components of required data.
-
Adherence:
for example institutional documentation may require that all data entry fields be displayed in reverse video.
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•
Observation
-
Applicability:
observation to verify that a particular type of source document is used for input.
-
Adherence:
examination to see if a condition is being met, for example the extent of abbreviation used within an entry field for institutional customers.
•
Analytical evaluation
-
Applicability:
determination by a specialist, whether specialist knowledge is required for a form-fill step, for example provision of a performance indicator for a supplier.
-
Adherence:
informed judgement concerning subject matter, such as the distinctiveness of a label.
•
Empirical evaluation
-
Applicability:
testing with user groups about the need for certain actions, for example, on a prototype, whether error feedback should be provided as soon as a field is completed.
-
Adherence:
testing with representational users to see for example whether an input sequence is optimal.
This ISO framework presents a systematic approach to evaluation, and it introduces the user’s viewpoint. Barnett (1996) also emphasises the user’s viewpoint, but is cautious about suggesting that designers should have more empathy with users,
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because the designers and users may be coming from very different backgrounds. He tackles the issue with more of a management orientation, and sees that evaluation should take into account social interactions of users. For this he recommends structured observational studies of users, so that:
•
Usage of current forms may be tested prior to redesign.
•
Why users make errors can be determined and documented.
•
How users understand the document may be ascertained.
The reward from the cost of testing will be in reduction of error rates with subsequent processing and support for more effective quality control.
Creation of published documents The process of publishing is subject to performance measurement of many aspects of the operation such as time from reception of manuscript to published document, and quality of proofreading. Measurement of the overall process is determined by such matters as user acceptance of products, and return on investment. From an information management point of view, particular attention is paid to evaluation of the finished products. There is a long history of assessment in libraries as part of the selection process for collections. Therefore a great deal of attention is paid to formal reviews of all types of media. In the case of books, typically the assessment for selection will take into account:
•
Intended audience.
•
Intellectual level.
•
Authority of authors, editors and publisher.
•
Access points provided by contents lists and indexes and their arrangement.
•
Layout and utilisation of graphics.
•
Accuracy.
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•
Currency of material.
•
Novelty.
•
Extent to which content is balanced.
Many of these criteria may apply to other published materials, but they have their own particular framework according to medium: for example the level of performance in the case of motion pictures, or the functionality in the case of digital media (see later under Websites).
Distribution Evaluation of information distribution may be undertaken at many levels. There is for example, a vast field of investigation concerned with improving the data flow around networks and concerned with factors such as bandwidth, error rates, and message queuing in order to make facilities such as ATMs function optimally. In information management, we are more concerned with the content of the messages (the semantic level), and with investigation of what may be achieved by different approaches to distribution. For example Orpen (1985) compared management distribution of information in 25 firms. He found that managers in the more effective companies were perceived to give significantly more support to subordinates’ use of scientific and technical information (STI), by active facilitation of information distribution through professional visits, conference attendance, publication, routing of pertinent literature, and support for STI service budgets. This type of analysis is regularly undertaken as part of the investigating of information seeking behaviour of distinct communities, particularly professional communities such as scientists or educators with significant information requirements. We looked at some examples of this in relation to particular groups in Chapter 15. The analysis may also be undertaken within an organisation as part of the requirements analysis of a user group identified with a particular information system. A case in point is educational institutions that are concerned about the extent to which information is effectively disseminated to staff and students through campus information systems, or in the case of distance students, through networks. For example a library might evaluate
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how effectively it gets print information to remote users, or how effectively these students can implement the formats for digital material that is distributed. When evaluation of information distribution is confined within an enterprise, it may form part of one of the types of audit procedures that we considered in Chapter 16. For example a data and information audit may include sampling of data to evaluate data quality and consistency. A communications audit may include using focus groups or interviews in order to ask participants about the effectiveness of internal communications (Hamilton, 1987). This may be complemented by content analysis that requires the examination of documents transferred in order to assess such matters as repetition, clarity, style, jargon and prejudice. Another approach to evaluation of distribution is focussed upon published documents and the extent to which others use them. Evaluation in this case is derived from the informetrics of information science that we introduced in Chapter 3.5. When the analysis is of documents, it is bibliometric, and its applications include examination of the extent to which defined groups disseminate information. In the case of researchers as a group, analysis may be undertaken of printed or digital documents to determine the extent of influence that is achieved by published material (Almind & Ingerwesen, 1997; Egghe & Rousseau, 1990). For example the extent of influence of a Website may be measured by the extent to which other Websites link to it, or in the case of published papers, by how often they are cited in other papers. In each of these cases, the data must be used with caution since only one aspect of influence is being measured. Nevertheless a great deal of bibliometric analysis has been undertaken in order to establish a variety of distribution patterns including:
•
The extent of association among researchers in a particular discipline and the extent of their inter- and intra-disciplinary interaction.
•
The influence of institutions with which individuals are affiliated.
•
The influence of research across national boundaries.
•
Comparison of the influence of different publications media such as periodicals published in the same disciplinary area.
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Analysis of library cataloguing procedures is an example of informetrics use in a context that is not concerned with publication influence. This may include determination of the extent to which cataloguing from bibliographic utilities, may be utilised in a particular local environment (copy cataloguing). It may also involve testing of error rates of cataloguing received from other institutions contributing to these utilities. In either case the evaluation will contribute to decision making about whether to support original cataloguing or to use distributed records.
Data dictionaries In Chapter 8 we described the functional features that may be applied to information resource dictionary systems. These have been taken by Bordoloi et al (1994)) and used as a criteria set for comparison of the features. Rather than using a checklist approach to determine presence or absence of the criteria, they propose a weighted evaluation with relative importance being assigned to the 9 main criteria, and within each of these, relativities being further assigned to sub-criteria. These criteria have already been explained as IRDS features in Chapter 8. An example of such an evaluation is shown in Figure 18.1. Of course the relativities assigned if such a procedure were followed, would depend upon the relative importance of the criteria to an organisation.
Controlled vocabularies Controlled vocabularies such as thesauri, subject headings lists and classification schemes, are usually evaluated by the effectiveness with which they are employed in indexing and subsequently in information retrieval as described in those sections below. However, Lancaster (1986) has pointed out some aspects of the way thesauri may be evaluated intrinsically, such as conformance with international standard, and various explorations of the proportion of descriptor-types that are employed, for example:
• Connected ratio:
the ratio of cross-referenced terms (that is terms having a relationship with at least one other term),
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Criteria/ Sub-criteria
Weight
x
Score
Sum
Weighted score
Ability to capture core entity structure; W=0.13
1.0 1.1
Data Entities
0.58
x
8
=
1.2
System Entities
0.22
x
7
=
1.54
1.3
External entities
0.20
x
6
=
1.20
x
7.38
Weighted criteria score 0.13 Ability to capture core attribute structure; W=0.13
2.0
4.64
2.1
Identification Attributes
0.31
x
8
=
2.48
2.2
Representation Attributes
0.23
x
8
=
1.84
2.3
Statistical attributes
0.13
x
6
=
0.78
2.4
Control attributes
0.22
x
8
=
1.76
2.5
Physical attributes
0.11
x
6
=
0.66
x
7.52
Weighted criteria score 0.13 Ability to capture core E-R properties; W=0.13
3.0 3.1
Relationship Name
0.15
x
9
=
1.35
3.2
(Specific) Maximum Cardinality
0.13
x
0
=
0.00
3.3
Mandatory/Optional Relationships
0.17
x
9
=
1.53
3.4
Generalisation (IS-A) Relationships
0.18
x
9
=
1.62
3.5
Mutually Exclusive Relationships
0.10
x
9
=
0.90
3.6
N-ary Relationships
0.16
x
0
=
0.00
3.7
Recursive relationships
0.11
x
9
=
0.99
x
6.39 3.06
Weighted criteria score 0.13 4.0
0.96
0.98
0.83
Extensibility support; W=0.12 4.1
Add/Update/Delete Entity-types
0.34
x
9
=
4.2
Add/Update/Delete Attribute-types
0.33
x
9
=
2.97
4.3
Add/Update/Delete Relationship-types
0.33
x
9
=
2.97
x
9.00
Weighted criteria score 0.12 Data Documentation & versioning support; W=0.11
5.0 5.1
Current Attribute Descriptions
0.4
x
8
=
3.20
5.2
Standard Control
0.31
x
6
=
1.86
5.3
Version Control
0.29
x
6
=
1.74
x
6.80
Weighted criteria score 0.11 6.0
1.08
0.75
Security Support; W=0.10 6.1
Control Access through Username/Password
0.62
x
8
=
4.96
6.2
Coordinate Access through DBMS
0.38
x
8
=
3.04
x
8.00 3.06
Weighted criteria score 0.10 7.0
0.80
Integrity support; W=0.09 7.1
Provision of Edit and Validation fns
0.34
x
9
=
7.2
Provision of Error Responding fns
0.33
x
9
=
2.97
7.3
Provision of Data Recovery fns
0.33
x
9
=
2.97
x
9.00
Weighted criteria score 0.09 8.0
0.81
Input/Output interface; W=0.10 8.1
Query Language Support
0.34
x
8
=
2.72
8.2
Command Language Support
0.33
x
8
=
2.64
8.3
Predefined Standard Reports Weighted criteria score 0.10
0.33
x
8
=
2.64
x
8.00
9.0
0.80
User-Friendliness; W=0.09 9.1
Help and Pop-up Screens
0.47
x
8
=
3.76
9.2
Ease of Learning and Using the Product
0.53
x
8
=
4.24
x
8.00
0.72
TOTAL
7.73
Weighted criteria score 0.09
Figure 18.1: IRDS evaluation schema, adapted from Bordoloi et al (1994, pp. 13-14) © Idea Group Publishing
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to total terms in the vocabulary. • Accessibility:
the mean number of references received by descriptors in a vocabulary, giving an indication of on average how many other descriptors refer to a vocabulary descriptor.
• Pre-coordination level:
mean number of words per descriptor.
• Equivalence ratio:
the ratio of permitted descriptors to explicitly prohibited descriptors, which should normally be desirable to exceed 1.
In each of these cases the measures may be used to compare successive editions of the vocabulary, or to compare an edition with similar ones in the same field.
Indexing A great deal of evaluation of indexing (and its cohorts, cataloguing and classification), has been oriented towards outcomes, particularly the assistance provided for retrieval from databases. Seminal work in this area, known as the Cranfield experiments (Cleverdon, Mills, & Keen, 1966) involved comparing information retrieval performance on databases of material that had been indexed in different ways. This work inspired a great deal of research into information retrieval effectiveness, much of which was concerned with establishing recall and precision measures (see below under information retrieval) for searches of databases using various forms of indexing, or no indexing. It was difficult to be conclusive about any of this work, because of issues such as identifying items not missed by searches, the relatively small size of experimental databases, and the problems of scale and vocabulary consistency in large databases. For example more recent work by Blair & Maron (1990), using large-scale full text databases, has questioned the efficacy of much of the earlier work. In any case, information retrieval research has moved on to question the simplicity of recall and precision as measures. However there remain areas of indexing evaluation that while influencing retrieval, may be carried out independently of retrieval performance. In particular these measure the consistency with which indexing is carried out when it is indexing assigned by human indexers. These are evaluations
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of inter-indexer and intra-indexer consistency. In either case these most usually involve a simple formula: C = AB/(A+B)
Here the Consistency factor for a comparison of indexing performance requires:
•
In the case of inter-indexer consistency, A represents terms assigned by indexer a, and B represents terms assigned by indexer b; AB represents terms on which they agree; the denominator represents the total terms assigned for the document in question.
•
In the case of intra-indexer consistency, A represents terms assigned by an indexer and B represents terms assigned some time later by the same indexer; again the denominator represents the total number of terms assigned during the two approaches to the same document.
In either case C may be averaged across a range of documents to determine a consistency factor. Many studies of this nature have been done, and they show that a high level of consistency is difficult to attain. It may be attributable to a number of factors beyond the background and experience of the indexers, which influences their own contribution (Lancaster, 1998) including:
•
Number of terms assigned – if a database indexing policy requires a limited number of terms to be assigned for an item, then a limit of say 5 per item, is likely to produce less consistency than say 20.
•
Controlled vocabulary by virtue of limiting indexer options with its size and specificity, and as an alternative to free text indexing.
•
Characteristics of subject matter – tightly defined scientific material is likely to leave less room for ambiguity than material in the social sciences and humanities.
•
Characteristics of items indexed, such as size and clarity of expression.
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The difficulty of assuring consistency gives reinforcement to the cheaper process of derived automatic indexing with software. Despite this, many bibliographic database producers continue to see the benefits of assigned indexing. It is perceived to provide better support for the information filtering needed to get relevant information from large databases.
Database evaluation Evaluation of databases has involved a number of quantitative and qualitative measures, and has been primarily directed at searchers of databases, to give them guidance regarding those databases that are most useful for the material that they seek, and to estimate the information quality within them. Inevitably there is overlap between evaluation criteria of databases and of Websites, and of the processes for retrieving material from databases. These are dealt with in subsequent sections, so that this section focuses on the structure and characteristics of the database features as represented in earlier chapters by agent and content. Among the characteristics (Fidel, 1987) (Boyce, Meadow, & Kraft, 1994) that may be evaluated are:
•
Scope This is the extent to which the creators of a database delineate the contents. It is sometimes expressed as coverage, but coverage is really a combination of scope and comprehensiveness. Scope may be expressed in a policy, but it can be difficult to adhere to such a policy, because of difficulty of interpretation. For example, the manager of a database that purports to deal with ‘educational materials’ may have difficulty in deciding just what the boundaries are for educational materials – everything may be educational in its way!
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•
Definition This is the extent to which the description of the database structure permits distinction between different types of data elements and within data elements. Full text databases that have been created without the benefit of markup may allow searching of an amorphous mass of data without the ability to discriminate between fields. This may affect the retrievability of material to the extent that reasonable search strategies may not be able to isolate it. Indicators of definition include:
Attribute list -
How many different attributes are defined, and how many are searchable?
-
Are there separate attributes for different representations of the same object, such as symbol and text?
Granularity -
What degree of granularity exists for attributes – can personal names be searched as forenames or family names?
-
Can authors be separately identified as individuals or corporate bodies?
Resolution -
How easily may different attributes be distinguished, for example are ‘address’ and ‘location’ too nearly the same?
Consistency -
Is there naming consistency for attributes, and do they have permitted values defined in the same way? (See Chapter 7).
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Flexibility -
How well does the schema accommodate changes in time in the real world that the database reflects? This might mean that new relationships are established between attributes. A relational database should accommodate these.
•
Comprehensiveness This is the extent to which the database creators succeed in including what they set out to embrace. For example those building a database that sets out to itemise all of the photographs of a particular series of art genre, such as ‘the impressionists, published within books’, although they have a well defined scope, will have great difficulty in identifying the existence of all the potential records. If databases of the same scope are being evaluated, then their comprehensiveness may be judged by comparing magnitude.
•
Currency This is the extent to which data are kept up to date, or the timeliness of the material included. Databases making available real time transaction information such as stock exchange data are intrinsically current. However, many databases depend upon scheduled updating procedures, or information from external sources that may delay entry. For example, neither a company database of personnel competencies, nor a commercial database of published journal articles, would normally have real time inclusion of records as the objects to which they refer are created. However, the delay before the records are entered, is a measure of their value.
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•
Overlap This is the extent to which there is material in common between databases that are being evaluated. The literature records numerous comparisons. These have been undertaken principally between databases of similar content, but parameters checked may include the extent to which the same records have been described, either at the level of attribute definition, or from the viewpoint of indexed content. Unfortunately, when comparisons are carried out by the database creators, the results are often tendentious, in order to promote use of their own databases, whereas academic studies are usually very narrow. This has led to calls for a panel of independent experts to make the comparisons (de Stricker, 1998). Who’ll fund them we wonder? A number of vendors who make available multiple databases have developed algorithms for eliminating duplication of records in searches that retrieve the same records from multiple databases. The trouble is, the records are not always the same. For the reasons itemised above under description, the same item may be described differently in different databases, so that full citation comparisons don’t necessarily eliminate redundancy.
•
Cost This is the cost of access to the database over and above ongoing information retrieval costs. Information retrieval costs are generally judged based upon access times, but there may well be additional or alternative subscription costs or purchase costs.
•
Reliability This is dependability or trustworthiness of a database. It is employed with respect to content, in contrast to the way we saw reliability applied to process under software quality above. It reinforces the distinction between databases and the software used for accessing them, and requires such
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questions to be addressed as:
•
How obvious are data validation problems such as typographical errors appearing in index files?
•
How often are known items not found in searches?
•
How credible are the data based upon the user’s own knowledge?
Information retrieval evaluation The effectiveness of information retrieval can be regarded as heavily influenced by each of the preceding information management operations. The way in which information is created, stored and organised will each have impact on retrieval irrespective of the methods of searching. No matter how sophisticated a retrieval program, it cannot retrieve information that has been incorrectly described at the creation stage. The contingency table Figure 3.14 introduced earlier, is used as the basis for expressing a number of ratios, principally:
•
Recall:
the proportion of relevant items extracted from a database’s full complement of relevant items.
•
Precision:
the proportion of relevant items in a retrieved set of items.
These measures have been repeatedly used in evaluation of information retrieval. They are also repeatedly used with reservation (Froehlich, 1994; Kowalski, 1997) because:
•
No degree of relevance is accounted for; in most evaluations items are regarded as either relevant or not relevant.
•
A distinction must be made between relevance (as topicality) and pertinence (or situational relevance) (Lancaster & Warner, 1993); in a
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given search, everything retrieved may be relevant in that it is about the subject of the request, however it may not be pertinent because the requester already knows about it, or some records may repeat the substantive content of others, or some although on the subject, are not applicable to the requester’s situation. •
Recall is not directly measurable in operational systems where the number of relevant items in the full database cannot be estimated without effective sampling.
•
Low recall or low precision does not necessarily mean an ineffective search; a novice searcher searching on a given subject may still retrieve key material with 20% recall that barely overlaps with the 80% recall obtained by an experienced searcher on the same topic.
•
The information requirement may change during the course of a search as a consequence of the intermediate material viewed during the search.
•
Attempting a wholly empirical approach to evaluation based upon relevance judgement is inappropriate, when measures may also be made of user judgements on such factors as timeliness, accuracy, completeness, or nature of treatment of the subject.
The distinction between relevance and pertinence is particularly useful in circumstances where information intermediaries are carrying out searching on the behalf of end users. This reasoning assumes that relevance is really determining how well items retrieved from a database are matching a constructed search query, but pertinence is about how well they are matching a user information need. Transient contextual factors have a much greater influence on pertinence, and in fact may obscure how well the information retrieval has been carried out. The improvement of evaluation techniques for information retrieval systems has been promoted through a series of Text Retrieval Evaluation Conferences (TREC) sponsored in the U.S.A. by government defence and standards agencies. These have served to highlight the importance of the concept of relevance. That which is perceived as relevant in a retrieval set by its recipient, or is pertinent, depends upon a number of contextual factors. For example, consider a request for information on ‘a technique for aerating goldfish aquariums’.
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What is considered to be a relevant document will be influenced by:
•
Time An item that may be highly relevant one day, such as a document that explains the mechanism of specific aerating device, might have lost importance the following day, because the device in question is unavailable at the time.
•
Situation The same document presented to two different users who have made the same search request, may be considered highly relevant by one who was previously unaware of the technique, but not by the other who was already familiar with the approach.
•
Need The same material may have differing relevance to different users with the same expressed need, because in one case the need is concrete, and in the other it is problem-oriented. For a concrete need the thematic boundaries are clearly defined, the request for information corresponds closely to the need, a single document may well satisfy the need, and when the document is retrieved, there is no longer a need. Although the problem-oriented need may be expressed in the same way, it may be that the request does not conform to the problem, the thematic boundaries are not defined, the request is not easily satisfied even with multiple relevant documents, and the need changes and is refined as the content of documents is assimilated (Frants, Shapiro, & Voiskunskii, 1997). The first user simply wanted a technique and found one. The second user may have expressed the need for a technique, but may really have been groping towards material dealing with enhancing bubble flow in aerating devices.
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•
Subjectivity Two users may differ in their judgement of relevance because one is able to think laterally and see how a generic example may be applied to the particular, whereas the other cannot see its application. It has been noted (Ingwersen, 1992) that what an item is about may be expressed differently according to the language, and perceptions of author, indexer, requester or search intermediary, and user.
In addition, as we showed in Chapter 15.1, the information-seeking behaviour of information users will be modified as their own understanding of what they are seeking changes.
Presentation If a good job has been done in retrieving information, we don’t want to diminish effectiveness by presenting what has been retrieved in such a way that understanding is hindered. Part 12 of the ISO ergonomics standard (International Standards Organization, 1992-2000) identifies the following attributes of presented information:
•
Clarity
the information content is conveyed quickly and accurately.
•
Discriminability
the
displayed
information
can
be
distinguished
accurately. •
Conciseness
users are not overloaded with extraneous information.
•
Consistency
unique design conformity with user’s expectation.
•
Detectability
user’s attention is drawn towards information required
•
Legibility
information is easy to read.
•
Comprehensibility meaning is clearly understandable, unambiguous, interpretable, and recognisable.
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This itemisation is put forward for consideration of both input and output. We can see how it can be utilised for assessing report formats. Among the specific recommendations of the standard for tabular information are that:
•
The material most relevant to the use with the highest priority be displayed in the left-most column.
•
Fields should be labelled and labels should explain the content unless their meaning is obvious for an intended user.
•
Inserting blank rows should facilitate visual scanning.
Compliance with attributes such as these and others from the standard can be tested with checklists.
Human-computer interaction evaluation Evaluation may be carried out with respect to each of the features examined in Chapter 13:
visual clarity, consistency, compatibility, informative feedback,
explicitness, appropriate functionality, flexibility and control, error prevention and correction, and user guidance and support. Ravden & Johnson (1989 p. 30) provide an example of the checklist approach as shown in figure 18.2. When the interface being evaluated is a front end to a database, some checklist approaches for evaluating HCI combine search capabilities and ease of use. Therefore the checklist comprises something like Figure 18.2, supplemented by a listing of search capabilities similar to the search formulation control examples explained in Chapter 11.2. Li (in Dillon, 1991, p. 259) adopts this approach with examples of user-friendliness questions including:
•
Is the meaning of command and menu items explained on screen?
•
Is context-specific online help provided?
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•
Can an index be browsed for selection of terms?
•
Is the user told how to exit functions and backup through screens?
Consistency of 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
Always
Most of time
Some of time
Very
Moderately
neutral
satisfactory
satisfactory
Never
Comments
Colours use (eg error indicators) Abbreviations, acronyms etc Icons, symbols, graphics Instruction presentation, location, layout Cursor initial position Information display format Information entry format Information entry method Cursor movement Option selection Function key use Standard operational procedure Response to user action Other comments
15. Overall rating
Moderately
Very
unsatisfactory
unsatisfactory
Figure 18.2: Checklist for HCI evaluation (adapted from Ravden & Johnson (1989, p. 30)) with permission Pearson Education
Websites Many of the factors mentioned under the above headings are taken into account with Website evaluation. Though the evaluation will be influenced by the purpose of the site, the criteria itemised in Figure 18.3 have general applicability.
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Criterion Functionality
Factors Active links Errors in markup Help Layout
Search facility Site maps Text for images Authority
Affiliation Copyright Creators
Credentials Editorial Funding
Viability Validity
Obtainability
Feedback Rating Refereed content Referring links Review Usage Cost Format support Load factors Metadata Naming Security Speed
Relevance
Audience Balance Breadth Controversial content Currency
Substance
Depth Accuracy Coverage Detail Evidence Explanation Readability
Examples of checks -
Do any of the links lead to a dead end when tried? Is there evidence of active page maintenance such as a date of update or revision? Are scripting characters inadvertently displayed by the browser? Does the page partially load and then provide warning prompts? Does assistance include links to explanatory material or alternative language entry? Are there orientation features such as consistent colours, or a corporate look? Are text and images arranged so that their association is obvious? Is there minimisation of clicks to get to lower levels? Is a search engine incorporated, focussing on retrieval of material from the site itself? Is there a summary of site organisation by showing broad categories of pages? Has the creator used the ALT option in Image tags to provide for users who: want to turn off images to speed page transfer? have a text-only browser on which they can see an explanation of missed images? Do the authors indicate who their employer is? Is an organisation responsible for governance of the site? Is a copyright indication displayed and in what authority does it reside? Do the metadata include a rights management statement? Does someone claim responsibility and provide address information for the page? Do the metadata indicate the page creators in the CREATOR or CONTRIBUTOR tags? Does the author indicate academic qualifications? Is there an editorial process indicated for vetting the contents? Is there an editorial policy available at the site? Is a financial source indicated? For a commercial site, is the sponsoring associated with the type of product being sold? How long has the page been in existence? Is it indicated (such as in a metatag) when page goes out of date? Does the site carry reports of positive impressions or endorsements by others? Does the site have any awards? Does the site indicate which of its content is refereed?
- How many other sites provide links to this one? -
Has the site been positively reviewed? Does the site report usage figures with a counter or graphics? Is access to site available only on a fee paying basis? Does the site display all aspects on your browser? Does the site require 'plugins' for full functionality? Are you always able to link to the site? If the site provides a database, does it indicate how many concurrent users carried? Does the site have a in the area? Does the site utilise a metadata convention such as AGLS or Dublin Core? Does the site have a URL and domain naming that may easily be recalled? Is there password protection for areas of the site? Is there a site certificate check? How quickly does the site load? Can you revert to text-only display and still use the site effectively? Is the site directed at a particular user community, and is this stated? Is the site complementary to other resources for a particular group? Are different sides of arguments or competing viewpoints represented? Is advertising clearly differentiated from information content? Is there too much material on the site for easy reference? Are there warnings that the site may be unsuitable for minors? Does the site request age to be stated before proceeding? Is there an indication of when it was last updated? Is there an indication of how frequently it is updated? Is there a description at the top-level page of how much more material is to follow? How does the site measure up against similar sources of known information? Is information free of typer- (oops) typographical and spelling errors? Is an indication given of the time period that is covered? Is content confined to particular geographic areas? How much explanation is provided for ideas that are expressed? If a database is linked to the site, how many distinct fields are in records Are statements supported by illustrations or quoted sources or linked Websites? Are links to other sites accompanied by an explanation of purpose? Is the grammar correct?
Figure 18.3: Website evaluation
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3.6.
Information management Book chapter: Administrative domain
Part D of the book deals with administrative information management. It includes three chapters that consider areas of pertinence to strategic information management. The first of these chapters is about consideration of information as a resource, the second is about information and planning and includes sections on analysis of competitive forces and development of corporate information policy. A final chapter provides an overview of social and political aspects including public policy, legislation for information, social influences and education for inflation literacy. The excerpt chosen for reproduction here is from Chapter 20 on Information and planning.
Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: a consolidation of
operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: CSU Centre for Information Studies, Chapter 20, Section 20.3-20.5, pp. 441-446.
It is included to show how elements of corporate information policy are expressed, and introduces the concept of a learning organisation.
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Corporate information policy An enterprise’s information policy should be the primary vehicle for planning the utilisation and development of information and knowledge. It has to be framed within the context of the institution’s overall mission and objectives. For public sector organisations, these goals may be confined by legislation under which they are enabled. In the private sector, they may be strongly shaped by the overriding objective of achieving a profit for shareholders. Nevertheless, institutions that are sensitive to opportunities for emerging technologies, that value their information resources, and that appreciate the range and flexibility of services that support patrons or customers, will enmesh their information policy within overall corporate objectives. Contextual factors that frame a policy include:
•
The organisation’s culture and managerial milieu.
•
The way IT development may support knowledge sharing through information distribution.
•
External factors such as competitor interests and the bargaining power of suppliers and customers.
•
The political and regulatory influences and imperatives.
•
Opportunities sought and challenges faced requiring information support.
The type of policy that is instituted within this context is differentiated from ICT policy by avoiding being technology driven. It also presumes that information needs of all stakeholders will be identified, as opposed to the narrower needs of management. It will contain elements that include:
•
How the organisation’s general objectives relate to specific information objectives.
•
The principles forming the basis for management of information.
•
The way ICT is to be utilised to support information management and knowledge sharing.
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•
The relationship between personnel, knowledge and information.
•
The relationship between information use and business processes.
•
The extent to which document management systems provide support for quality processes and knowledge utilisation.
•
How the performance of information and knowledge use will be monitored and cost-effectiveness determined.
•
The way in which information is to be utilised as a resource beyond the enterprise.
The strategies flowing from such a policy will depend upon the applicable corporate environment, but they can have much in common with each other. For example a proposal of terms for information strategy for institutions in the UK higher education sector (Coopers & Lybrand & Joint Information Systems Committee Information Strategies Steering Group, 2001) is as follows:
•
Identify the high level information needs based on the institutional vision.
•
Identify areas of (potentially) shared information where an information strategy is required.
•
Establish the set of attitudes which all individuals should adopt with respect to the treatment of information.
•
Establish the quality standards required to ensure that information is ‘fit for purpose’.
•
Identify the roles and responsibilities required to operate and maintain the information strategy.
•
Demonstrate the costs and benefits of the strategy, including analysis of options where appropriate.
•
Define an implementation plan showing priorities and timescales.
•
Establish ways of monitoring the operation of the information strategy and to keep its various components under review.
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These are generic enough to apply in many different environments. Orna (1999, pp. 106-107) itemises a series of policy elements “not as a model for copying, rather as a source of ideas about what might be appropriate ..”. We have utilised these as the basis for the policy components illustrated in Figure 20.5.
- Define the knowledge that is needed to achieve goals, the information needed to maintain the knowledge, and the ways in which people in the organisation need to use knowledge and information Acquisition - Ensure that appropriate information is acquired from outside and generated inside Utilisation - Exploit information fully, to meet all current needs, and to help meet changes in goals and in the operational environment - Use knowledge and information ethically in all internal and external dealings - Provide appropriate human and financial resources for managing and developing the use of information and knowledge - Ensure that it reaches, on time, and in the right format, all the people who need to use it Evaluation - Audit the use of information and knowledge regularly to ensure that what is needed is available and that it is used appropriately and to good effect - Provide for a coordinated overview of total resources of knowledge and information - Develop and apply reliable means of assessing the costs and value of information, and the contribution it makes to achieving objectives Authority - Identify the people responsible for managing specific resources of information, and those who are ‘stakeholders’ in them, and ensure that the authority of the managers of information resources matches the responsibility they carry Communication - Promote information interchange between managers of information resources, and between them and stakeholders Infrastructure - Develop and maintain an infrastructure of systems and ICT to support the management of information resources and information interactions within the organisation and externally Access - Pursue maximum openness of access to information inside the organisation and externally - Safeguard current and historical information resources so that they remain accessible for use at all times Preservation - Ensure preservation of the organisation’s ‘memory’ in the form of its knowledge base - Provide for business continuity with backup and re-establishment procedures for records supporting critical business processes Familiarisation - Provide appropriate education and training to enable members of staff to meet their responsibilities in using knowledge and information Evolution - Align the definitions as goals evolve and change - Seek to use knowledge and information to support the management of change initiatives to benefit the organisation, and to create new knowledge - Use this policy as the basis for information strategies which will support business strategy
Definition
Figure 20.5: Information policy components
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Implementation of such policy can only be carried out, if it is contextualised by senior management, has information needs established in terms of individual and system requirements, and is monitored and reviewed with reference to standards, benchmarking and established performance indicators. Synnott (1987) talks in terms of architectural planning when describing the implementation of information resource management, and tries to exemplify management responsibilities at different levels. If we use his approach we arrive at a planning matrix shown in Figure 20.6, which gives some examples of roles for different levels of management.
Strategic
Tactical Create business units and strategy
Operational
Business processes
Establish corporate structure, mission & objectives
Data
Link data planning to Manage shared data as business information needs corporate resource
Assure data quality through data administration
Information
Identify resources for strategic utilisation
Provide for environmental scanning processes Establish ownership & responsibilities
Monitor external information resources
Knowledge
Allocate resources and personnel to strategic units
Build relationships and training programs
Maintain guides to expertise and lessons learned
Systems
Identify new applications within framework of corporate objectives
Develop and integrate existing systems
Maintain, document and provide training
Technology
Monitor innovation, and Install computers and develop and maintain rolling networks for wide and local replacement plans areas as appropriate Apply standards
Assure uninterrupted service levels and software support
Communications
Plan corporate policy
Facilitate knowledge-sharing
Undertake communications audits
Establish products and services
Figure 20.6: Planning matrix for information policy implementation
In Figures 20.5 and 20.6 there is an implication that much of the policy development will be carried out by information professionals, particularly the tactical and operational levels. At the strategic level, they should at least have major input. There are other aspects of the business processes where primary professional input will not be from information professionals, but which still have an important influence on information management. These include:
• Human resources
for matters such as ergonomics, rewards and incentives, training requirements, teleworking and health and safety.
• Finance
for funding and approvals mechanisms, investment
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appraisal of technology, standards and procedures for procurement, and auditing. • Legal
for statutory obligations and contract negotiations.
• Marketing
for customer relationship management.
In Chapter 4.2 we looked at different typologies of organisational decisionmaking, such as rational, expert and political. An attempt has been made to characterise the political example of these, specifically with respect to information management. McGee & Prusak (1993, p. 153) refer to the need for an enterprise to be explicit about its political model for information policy. They characterise a number of models – not that these are necessarily associated with specific policy. They endorse what they see as the benign models of monarchy (definition of information categories and reporting structures by the leaders who then choose whether or not to share after collection), and federalism (consensus and negotiation of key information elements and reporting structures). These are preferred to technocratic utopianism (technical approach stressing categorisation and modelling of all information assets, and reliance on emerging technologies), feudalism (individual business units, minimal reporting to corporation), or anarchy. Whatever the perceived typology, it is appropriate that relevant staff in an organisation should be conscious of its decision-making framework, for the effective strategic planning of information management.
Learning organisations The concept of intelligent or knowing organisations that have the ability to learn, consciously develop staff, and transform themselves, has been promulgated as a strategy for corporate success, often in the same breath as the need for knowledge management. Because corporate knowledge can be expressed as what is known and documented about an enterprise’s structures, processes and systems, the evolution and transformation of these denotes a learning organisation. On this basis, all organisations are learning! However a systematic approach that involves organisational support through policy and action for collective learning gives an enterprise more viability. Senge (1990) sees forward-looking enterprises – those that Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.6: Excerpt from Book Ch 20: Corporate information policy)
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continually expand their capacity to create their future - as having personnel with a culture of adaptive and generative learning who work within a systems thinking framework. These organisations also foster the disciplines of shared vision with group commitment, team learning, personal mastery and changing mental models from continuing reflection. It seems then, that an enterprise needs to institutionalise the process of ‘stretching itself’ so that it is constantly investigating the margins of its domain – by learning more. But is it possible to direct individual leaning in such a way that it becomes collective learning? Argyris (1999) points out, there is a gap between those in business on one hand who optimistically advocate organisational learning and describe enablers, and sceptical researchers on the other hand who find the very term organisational learning to be paradoxical. Contributing factors to the scepticism include the demotivation for personnel to share all of their learning if it makes them dispensable, and the problem of dealing with an organisation as something that can learn, when it is not a sentient being. If there are to be learning organisations, then what type of socialisation will achieve sharing of knowledge for the benefit of the enterprise? In Chapter 4.6 when we introduced the idea of knowledge transfer, we noted that there are different characterisations of knowledge and that the transfer process is influenced by organisational culture. The practicalities of sharing include team investigations, networked access to information materials, computer-mediated communication, coaching, and teleconferencing. Each should be accompanied by means of retaining what has been shared in an organised form that can be used subsequently by others. These practicalities should occur driven by an agenda that both expresses an information plan for an enterprise, and has executives convey a synthesis of why the disparate activities that a company is involved in, are relevant to its purpose. Choo (1998a) sees the primary focus of organisational learning to be the external environment, and describes the process as a continuous cycle of activities that include sensing that environment, perceiving the external changes taking place, interpreting the meaning and significance of these changes, and developing appropriate adaptive behaviours based upon the interpretation. Further, he maintains that information management processes support an organisation’s learning activities
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by identifying information needs, acquiring information, organising and storing it, developing information products and services, distributing information and using it. Alternative propositions for transforming information into knowledge, though paying attention to external information, concentrate more on learning theory. So for example Schwandt (1995) uses a theory of action involving internally and externally focussed means and ends, to identify four learning subsystems that carry out the functional prerequisites for collective learning:
•
Environmental interface (a means, externally focussed, promoting adaptation) This comprises interdependent activities including surveying customers, public relations, research efforts, lobbying and environmental scanning.
•
Action-reflection (an end, externally focussed, promoting goal attainment) This defines the relationships between the organisation’s actions. By examining those actions, at the routine day-to-day standard operating procedure level and the major high impact on adaptation level, it is able to assign meaning.
•
Dissemination and diffusion (an end, internally focussed, promoting integration) This includes management actions, communication and networking, in order to transmit information throughout organisational systems.
•
Meaning and memory (a means, internally focussed, promoting pattern maintenance) This provides the foundation from which other subsystems draw guidance. It maintains the mechanisms that create the criteria, selection, focus and control of the learning system. Included are those actions that sustain and create the cultural beliefs, values and assumptions of the organisation,
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using the premise that learning is based upon shared understanding. The storage mechanisms are technical through records, databases and routines, and personal through individual memory and consensus to construct collective history.
Managers’ understanding of types of learning may assist them to formulate training and development in such a way that their companies can adapt creatively to changed circumstances, and learn what needs to be learnt as it is identified. From a human resources viewpoint, this must be accompanied by a mindset of life-long learning and continuous improvement. From a leadership viewpoint, it presents the challenge of shaping a culture so that the pattern of basic assumptions that a group uses for problem solving, discourse, validation and reference points, can be consciously re-examined. Along with this, new measures of organisational performance need to be identified, while continuing to account for typical individual issues such as personal crises, disagreement with corporate ideology, and non-disclosure of data errors, and still achieving coherent mutually supportive action. Learning organisations have been assigned such adjectives as ‘informationbased’, and ‘knowledge-generating’. They are proposed as the appropriate corporate entities for an economic framework in which information and knowledge are primary ‘commodities’ in markets. In addition to having attributes such as flatter and more flexible management hierarchies, well-adapted internal communications, and customer-orientation, they are expected to have personnel who learn and work collaboratively with shared vision and a readiness to tackle new areas.
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Chapter 4: Terminology used by information professionals 4.1.
Journal article: Vocabulary use study In the course of undertaking the literature review, the many databases searched
were found to vary in the vocabularies that they used for indexing information management concepts. This prompted a paper that examined this variation. It was accepted for publication as:
Middleton, M. (2004) The way that information professionals describe their own discipline: a comparison of thesaurus descriptors. New Library World 105(11): 429-435.
Abstract as published A brief discussion of discipline formation in information management is used to introduce the way different terminology is employed for describing information professionals as well as what it is that they do. This leads to a comparison of how information professionals and their professions are described in several of the thesauri that are the tools of the trade. These thesauri show marked differences in treatment of similar concepts.
Contribution to research The range of approaches for producing preferred thesaurus descriptors to describe information professionals varies considerably. This variation applies even between thesauri that are used for describing databases in a domain that includes information studies as an area of interest. Despite the necessary differences between thesauri as they apply different contextual and subject domain approaches, there is room for a more consistent approach to disciplinary nomenclature. The paper analyses differences in terminology in order to illustrate inconsistencies between a number of the main tools that are in use for indexing.
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The extent to which the terminology of a discipline is consistent provides an indication of how well-formed the discipline is. On this evidence, there is as yet some way to go to reach a shared paradigm for what is being practiced.
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Introduction I am presently undertaking research into discipline formation in the information professions in order to complement a publication (Middleton, 2002) that endeavours to set forth the principles and practice of information management. This work has included investigation of how information professionals describe what it is that they do. To assist with this process, it seemed appropriate to explore one of the stocks of the trade, the thesaurus, to see how the information professions and their practices are described in their own thesauri. This work begins with a discussion of discipline formation and reference to some commentaries and studies of the information professions that are pertinent. This leads to an examination of terminology used across several thesauri used in association with databases that include material about information professionals.
Discipline formation Everyone manages information. Not everyone does it for a living. Those who do, come from different backgrounds and branches of learning. If these diverse information professionals have something in common, it may be that they recognise a requirement for intermediation between information processing systems and their users. This intermediation may take the form of direct intercession through personal assistance to users. Alternatively, it may involve shaping of systems to facilitate use through operations such as interface design, classification, indexing and application of meta-information. Information science provides many of the principles used in the practice of information management. There has been many years of debate on what comprises the defining knowledge of the field of information science. One approach to identifying disciplinary boundaries is to examine the relationships between key authors, and bibliometric analysis has cast some light on discipline formation. For example Ellis, Allen & Wilson (1999) have used co-citation and citation analysis to examine user studies and information retrieval research. Their results pointed to a disjunction in the bodies of work of information science and information systems, even though there would appear to be commonality of interest in the research areas. Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 4.1: New Library World paper)
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It is only relatively recently that scholars have spoken in terms of formation of an information management discipline through application of information science. It remains problematical to do so since there are many contributing fields, and it is difficult to identify core principles that are familiar to all adherents. Nevertheless, recent specific attempts to characterise information management as a discipline have been made by writers such as Rowley (1998; 1999). She gives more attention to categorising the practice of principles articulated from information science than earlier writers who have focussed on the elements of the science with less attention to their application. Webber (2003) is among those who ponder information science as a discipline but, she also takes time to consider the application of the discipline. She proposes a polarization of approaches separating academics and professionals, pointing for example to work that suggests practitioners may use theories, but that the theories come from disciplines other than information science.
Terminology of information management A recent wide-ranging summary of the area (Wilson, 2003) says that if information management is to have a viable role in organisational performance, then the function (rather than the idea) must become accepted as a key part of organisational structures, and be accompanied by coherent educational curriculum and a research agenda. It seems that an agreed disciplinary paradigm is yet to be accepted. Further, discipline formation investigations seem to focus more on finding a set of agreed information science principles, rather than examining what is engaged in by practicing information professionals. The definition of discipline is fertile ground, repeatedly re-ploughed by scholars, and with an extensive dictionary trail. For example the Oxford English Dictionary (OED online, 2004) finds numerous etymological pathways and nuances since the 14th Century. The one most pertinent to this work seems to have been used by Chaucer in 1386 “... This disciplyne and this crafty science” interpreted among other things as a branch of instruction or education, or a department of learning or knowledge. Other definitions speak of system or method for maintenance of order, or system of rules of conduct.
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The OED is also diverse with its definitions of profession. Probably the most pertinent for the purposes of this work has been with us since the sixteenth century: “a vocation in which a professed knowledge of some department of learning or science is used in its application to the affairs of others or in the practice of an art founded upon it”. A concern of discipline formation work is to place these definitions in a more contemporary context – one in which scholarship interests itself in the formation (and disappearance) of professions, and how they establish their mores using an agreed knowledge base and language.
Employment in the information professions Information
management
is
often
described
as
interdisciplinary
or
multidisciplinary. It leaves itself open to charges of superficiality, lack of rigour and abandonment of carefully developed methodologies that have assured disciplinary integrity and success. Academia may be concerned to establish elements and boundaries of information science, but outside the academy a significant number of people consider themselves to be undertaking information management. This is evidenced for example, by the professional associations that have been formed using various names to lay claim to the area. These include names and roles such information managers, information professionals, librarians, indexers and the like. A seminal study that detailed the work of the information professions in the USA was that of Debons, King, Mansfield, and Shirey (1981). Their research involved an extensive survey of professions and at the time estimated that there were 1.64 million information professionals working in the U.S.A. They used broad categories for what these people were doing including: managing information operations, programs, services, or databases; information systems analysis; analysing data and information on behalf of others; preparing data and information for use by others; searching for data and information on behalf of others; and information systems design. Studies such as this, undertaken as researchers tried to identify constituents of an information society, might be criticized for their broadness, but they prepared the way for more focussed later work.
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Many subsequent studies have confirmed the diffuseness of the employment sector for such work. Cronin, Stiffler and Day (1993) saw it in terms of the ‘heartland’ (traditional jobs in established institutions), the ‘hinterland’ (information work utilising traditional skills, but outside the traditional institutions, or requiring adaptation), and the ‘horizon’ (software engineers, telecommunications managers, and the like). The term multimodal is sometimes used to describe the tasks carried out, and one description that has gained some currency is that of the ‘hybrid’ information worker. This is to convey the idea of a person who has had education in both information management and a subject discipline such as biology or psychology, and who is an information specialist focusing in the subject discipline. Abbott (1988) carried out a sociological analysis of the division of expert labour, and examined how the professions work. He concentrated on the way that professional tasks are delineated and stratified. He was less interested in disciplinary boundaries than in defining their application - that is, their professional boundaries. His work is of relevance beyond his general examination of approaches to professional tasks because he included case studies of three professional areas, one of which is the information professions. His use of the term ‘case study’ means a detailed historiographic analysis of the literature in terms of how it defines professional tasks. He categorised the information professions as qualitative (principally librarians and journalists), and quantitative (a “complex and contentious group” including accountants, statisticians, operations researchers, and the like). He envisaged these groups coalescing under one jurisdiction as a consequence of the joint stimulants of computing technology and information science. The periodicals of the professional associations often examine the boundaries of the field and what employment in it means, Journals such as Information Outlook and Online return repeatedly to role definition, sometimes supported by survey data. For example in reporting excerpts from their Outsell Inc study Corcoran, Dagar and Stratigos (2000) provide a wealth of data on roles. The roles that the data show to be most predominant are information research; selection, evaluation and acquisition of external content sources; training and educating end-users; developing and managing overall content solutions for users; managing desktop deployment of external content; performing value-added information analysis; and managing internally generated content.
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Academic writers such as Tedd (2003) go further to detail the changing roles of information professionals and how they should be addressed in education and training. Both academic and professional writers must address the range of activities carried out by information professionals, and what such people call themselves. Much of this material, in the form of written analysis ultimately finds its way into full-text or reference databases. Many of these databases are indexed using controlled vocabularies developed by these same information professionals. It is of interest to see how they provide for describing themselves.
Method Rather than examine what has been written in the discipline, this approach examines the tools that describe what has been written. Thesauri are used to support information retrieval from bibliographic databases for particular domains of knowledge. Inevitably, descriptors that are used to denote what is ostensibly the same concept will vary according to context and domain requirements. Comparison of descriptors simply involved consultation of a number of different online thesauri that are either linked from a Controlled vocabularies website (Middleton, 2004), or are available online as search tools associated with their corresponding subscription databases. In each case, terminology used to represent the concept of information professionals (e.g. information managers, indexers, and the like), or the tasks they undertake (information management, indexing, and the like), was examined. The vocabularies chosen were ones that are used to describe databases in which there are recorded documents about information professionals and their practices.
Thesaurus comparison It is salutary, if a little disconcerting, to see how ‘information professionals’ is provided for as a concept in several thesauri. In the following examples, descriptors shown in the illustrations are reproduced with their relationships as they appear in the thesauri from which they have been drawn. When descriptors from the thesauri are
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referred to within the narrative they are shown in italics, and referred to in the singular as individual descriptors. The LISA Thesaurus (2004)1 recognises the existence of information professionals, but as a subgroup of library and information professionals. Indexers is permitted as a term but in a category of its own, unlinked to any information occupations. Information professionals Use For Documentalists Information managers Information officers Information scientists Information work staff Broader Terms
Library and information professionals [+] Staff [+]
Narrower Terms
Chief information officers
Related Terms
Library staff [+]
In LISA, librarians is merely related to library staff, which mysteriously in turn encompasses specific types of librarians, but not librarians in general. It would appear too that professional education must always be considered part of library staff! Library managers is a permitted term in the staff and the managers hierarchy, but not the library staff hierarchy. Neither information managers nor records managers is represented. Library staff Broader Terms
Library and information professionals [+] Staff [+] Narrower Terms Chief librarians Deputy librarians Library assistants Library technicians Professional education [+] Systems librarians Teacher librarians Information professionals [+] Related Terms Librarians Paraprofessionals [+]
1
Online with the database on CSA’s LISA database service 12th January 2004.
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Similarly, in identifying what these people do, LISA differentiates between information science and librarianship. Library and information science Information science and librarianship Use For Narrower Terms
Information science Librarianship [+]
However both information management and knowledge management while being permitted terms, appear as top terms in hierarchies of their own, as does indexing which has an impressive set of narrower terms. None of these is linked with information science and librarianship. Records management, documents management and knowledge management are all permitted but appear in separate hierarchies from information management and from library and information science. On the other hand, an information work hierarchy exists independently of any of these. Information work Use For
Information systems
Broader Terms
Information sources [+]
Narrower Terms
Community information services [+] Computerized information work [+] Management information systems [+] Online information work
Related Terms
Information industry [+] Information science Information services [+] Reference work [+] Telephone based information services
The Wilson database Library Literature and Information Science2 as an associated thesaurus. It includes a hierarchy personnel. A number of the 98 narrower terms are representing specified types of information personnel, for example abstracting and indexing services/staff, and librarians (with 37 narrower terms of its own for specific types, including archivists and indexers!). Many of the terms subordinate to personnel are in dual hierarchies, for example public libraries/staff is a narrower term of librarians and in turn has public librarians 2
Searched on WilsonWeb 15th January 2004.
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as a narrower term. However public librarians is also a direct narrower term of librarians. It is under special librarians (not itself a dual hierarchy) that there is reference to information managers.
Information scientists Information managers; Programmers; Used for: Systems analysts; Documentalists; Information officers; Systems librarians ^ {BT}
Special librarians
- {NT}
Information brokers [+] Information services/Staff Webmasters
Records managers and knowledge managers are not used, but information science as a profession is permitted as a term in its own right. The processes that are carried out by information professionals are represented by knowledge management, abstracting (including indexing as a narrow term, in turn with its own subordinates), librarianship, records management (with several narrower terms including archives/administration). Given that information scientists is preferred to information managers, it is to be expected that information science will be there and information management absent. This is so, but information science appears under library science. The Thesaurus of ERIC descriptors (ERIC Processing and Reference Facility, 2004) prefers information scientists to information professionals as an entry term, and regards librarians and search intermediaries as subordinate. Again indexers does not rate a mention, even as a non-preferred term. Neither does information managers or other personnel such as records managers. However, information management has a developed set of relationships and includes records management as a narrower term. The Australian Thesaurus of Educational Descriptors (ACER Cunningham Library, 2003) was originally based upon ERIC, and for the terms consulted, its terminology is identical. Both this thesaurus and ERIC recognise indexes and the process of indexing, but not the people who do it.
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A search in EBSCOhost version of ERIC3 using default search fields showed 100 text references (within titles, subject, descriptor, or abstract fields) to ‘indexer(s)’ and 125 for ‘information w1 manager(s)’. Although many of these did not warrant indexing under ‘indexers’ as a descriptor, there certainly seemed enough pertinent items to justify having a thesaurus entry for the term. Moving back to more general terms, managers is included under managerial occupations (merely related to professional occupations) or administrators (these include library administrators, medical records administrators and library directors). All these are under personnel rather than professional personnel. Preferred term Information Scientists Individuals who observe, measure, and Scope Note: describe the behavior of information, as well as those who organize information and provide services for its use BT
Professional Personnel
NT
Librarians Search Intermediaries
Add Date: 07/01/1966 Add Date: 08/29/1994
RT
Information Industry Information Science Information Science Education Library Associations
UF
Information Brokers Information Professionals Information Specialists
Add Date:
07/07/1971
Given the interests of the professional association that sponsors it, an expansive approach might be expected of the thesaurus of ASIS4 (Milstead, 1999). Indeed, a number of examples of information professionals are permitted. In contrast to LISA, librarians is subsumed within information professionals.
However information
managers doesn’t exist and information resources management is preferred to information management. There is no room as yet for knowledge management or the people who do it, though knowledge workers are accommodated as information workers.
3 4
Search conducted on complete EBSCONet ERIC database as of 12th January, 2004. Now the American Society for Information Science & Technology.
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Current term Information professionals Used For information professions information specialists professionals, information Broader Term
information workers
Narrower Term
archivists editors information scientists intermediaries NT online searchers librarians media specialists records managers translators
RT
information brokers
Although indexers isn’t included, the processes that these people undertake receive lots of attention, with narrower terms including database indexing, manual indexing, and subject indexing. Records management is recorded as a narrower term of information resources management but the online entry for information resources management displays no narrower terms. Current term indexing organization of information Broader Term Narrower Term
automatic indexing book indexing database indexing machine aided indexing manual indexing name indexing periodical indexing subject indexing
RT
aboutness abstracting and indexing services authority files classification classification schemes exhaustivity (indexing) facet analysis index languages index terms indexer consistency indexes (information retrieval) literary warrant specificity (indexing) weighting
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Inspec databases cover physics, electrical engineering and computing, and include significant coverage of information science and technology. However the Inspec Thesaurus (Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2004)5 does not mention information professionals, indexers, or librarians. Information management, records management, and knowledge management are all included, but there is no use of managers to indicate responsibility for these processes. There seems to be a policy that occupations do not get mentioned by name. Instead, terms like employment or professional aspects are used in addition to a process term such as indexing in order to represent a concept. professional aspects Years in use
1969-
Narrower Terms
ethical aspects professional communication
Related Terms
accreditation certification continuing professional development legislation personnel product liability qualifications societies teacher training training
Related Class. Codes A0110 ; A0175 ; B0100 ; C0100 ; C0200 ; C7290 ; D1050 ; E0120 ; E0250 ; E0270 Used for indexing Years in use
liability, professional
1969-
Broadest Terms:
computer applications
Broader Terms:
information analysis
Narrower Terms
database indexing
Related Terms:
hypermedia markup languages thesauri
Related Class Codes: C7240
5
Online with the Inspec database on EBSCONet database service 9th March 2004.
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Inspec’s database provides a search field for key phrase headings where the indexer may compensate with terms such as information professions, but there is of necessity no hierarchical arrangement that groups the different types. As was the case with ERIC, database documents dealing with indexers seemed to warrant inclusion as a thesaurus term. ‘Indexer*’ in TI, KW, and AB fields produced 392 hits admittedly inflated by self-referential abstracts that mention the journal called Indexer. The search ‘information w1 manager’ produced 1398 hits. Turning our attention from thesauri whose focus includes information studies, to one that concentrates upon occupations, an example is Occupations Thesaurus (National Library of Australia, 2002). This thesaurus provides terminology for the names of occupations, but avoids using terms for what the occupations undertake, for example indexers but not indexing. There is a business professionals hierarchy, but there are no subordinate terms that would normally represent information professionals. Information scientists (LCSH) Indexers NT Librarians Business professionals (local) Businessmen UF NT
Bankers Company directors Executives Exporters Financiers Manufacturers Merchants
RT
Entrepreneurs
Finally, two thesauri are considered that are broader in scope. The OECD Macrothesaurus (1991) recognises information workers but only two specific types.
KW: INFORMATION WORKERS BT: WORKERS NT:
DOCUMENTALISTS LIBRARIANS
RT:
INFORMATION SCIENCES INFORMATION SOCIETY
UF:
COMPUTER PERSONNEL
FA:
13.09.09
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The Thesaurus of Sociological Indexing Terms (Booth, 1999) allows for professional workers, and has many specific narrower terms including administrators, journalists, and teachers. However no room is found for information or knowledge workers either as a group, or by specific types. Nevertheless ‘librarian(s)’ retrieved 140 items as a Sociological Abstracts keyword search on titles or abstracts6, and other specified terms for types of information professionals also received varying numbers of hits, seemingly justifying thesaurus inclusion.
Conclusion As may be expected from an emerging social science discipline, this study demonstrates that terminology that describing the discipline is inadequately defined. There is imprecise and diversified choice of descriptors in different vocabularies. The range of approaches for producing preferred thesaurus descriptors to describe information professionals varies considerably. This variation applies even between thesauri that are used for describing databases in a domain that includes information studies as an area of interest. Despite the necessary differences between thesauri as they apply different contextual and subject domain approaches, there would appear to be room in some of them for a more considered approach to producing descriptors that link the assorted professions both generically and associatively. Reference to international standards for thesaurus construction as exemplified in works like that of Aitchison, Gilchrist and Bawden (2000), would also be of benefit. The extent to which the terminology of a discipline is consistent, itself provides an indication of how well-formed the discipline is. On the evidence of terminology formally assigned by its own practitioners, there is as yet some way to go to reach a shared disciplinary paradigm. 6
Online with the Sociological Abstracts database on CSA’s database service 13th January 2004.
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References Abbott, A. D. (1988), The system of professions: an essay on the division of expert labor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. ACER Cunningham Library, (2003), Australian thesaurus of education descriptors, 3rd ed., ACER, Camberwell, Australia. Aitchison, J., Gilchrist, A. and Bawden, D. (2000), Thesaurus construction and use: a practical manual, 4th ed., Fitzroy Dearborn, Chicago, IL. Booth, B. (1999), Thesaurus of sociological indexing terms, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., Retrieved January, 10th 2004, from http://www.csa.com/edit/sociothes.html Corcoran, M., Dagar, L. and Stratigos, A. (2000), “The changing roles of information professionals”, Online, Vol 24 No. 2, pp 28-33. Cronin, B., Stiffler, M. and Day, D. A. (1993), “The emergent market for information professionals: educational opportunities and implications”, Library Trends, Vol 42 No 3, pp 257-276. Debons, A., King, D. W., Mansfield, U. and Shirey, D. L. (1981), The information professional: survey of an emerging field, Marcel Dekker, NY. Ellis, D., Allen, D., & Wilson, T. (1999). Information science and information systems: Conjunct subjects disjunct disciplines. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Vol 50 No 12, pp 1095-1107. ERIC Processing and Reference Facility. (2004), Thesaurus of ERIC descriptors, Retrieved 12th January 2004, from http://www.ericfacility.net/extra/pub/thessearch.cfm LISA thesaurus (2004), Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Internet database service, Retrieved 13th Jan, 2004, from http://www.csa.com/csa/ Middleton, M. (2002), Information management: a consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy, Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia. Middleton,
M.
(2004),
Controlled
vocabularies,
Retrieved
13th
Jan,
2004,
from
http://sky.fit.qut.edu.au/~middletm/cont_voc.html Milstead, J. (1999), ASIS thesaurus of information science, Retrieved 19th September, 2003, from http://www.asis.org/Publications/Thesaurus/tnhome.htm National Library of Australia. (2002), Occupations thesaurus: recommended for contributions to the Australian Register of Archives and Manuscripts, Retrieved 12th January, 2004, from http://www.ericfacility.net/extra/pub/thessearch.cfm OECD macrothesaurus, (1991), OECD, Paris.
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OED
online
(2004),
Oxford
University
Press,
Retrieved
12th
January,
2004,
from
http://www.oed.com/public/publications/online.htm Rowley, J. (1998), “Towards a framework for information management”, International Journal of Information Management, Vol 18 No 5, pp 359-369. Rowley, J. (1999), “In pursuit of the discipline of information management”, New Review of Information and Library Research, Vol 5, pp. 65-77. Tedd, L. A. (2003), “The what? and how? of education and training for information professionals in a changing world: some experiences from Wales, Slovakia and the Asia-Pacific region”, Journal of Information Science, Vol 29 No 1, pp 79-86. Webber, S. (2003). Information science in 2003: a critique. Journal of Information Science, 29(4), 311329. Wilson, T. D. (2003). Information management. In J. Feather & R. P. Sturges (Eds.), International encyclopedia of information and library science (2nd ed., pp. 263-277). London: Routledge.
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Chapter 5: Historical aspects of STI services The two papers in this Chapter derive from the case studies of Australian STI services. The first paper was originally focussed upon one service, AESIS, for conference presentation. However for subsequent publication, a more general historical overview was sought by editors. The second paper combines studies of six different services.
Contribution to research The papers together provide a historical overview of the development and characteristics of the services, review strategic and political influences, and lead to propositions about their continuing maintenance and development. The first paper was also able to provide an Australian view that accompanied descriptions of international development. The coverage of Australian literature by such services has been developed since the 1970s, but as always been subject to constraints imposed by the public policy environment, by resourcing, and by technical application. By analysing this development, these papers show what has been done well, and what has been done less well in relation to the services in question. They also lead to proposals for improving metadata application, for complementing international services, for provision of citation linking and for association with full text material. Together they complement the two papers in Chapter 6 which use the same case studies to examine the information services with respect to discipline formation in information management.
5.1.
Book chapter: Drops in the ocean: the development of … STI in Australia A paper ‘Drops in the ocean: the development of scientific and technological
information services in Australia’ was accepted for presentation at:
Second Conference on the History and Heritage of Scientific and Technical Information Systems, November 16 - 17, 2002, Philadelphia, PA, USA. This paper was then substantially revised and published as:
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Middleton, M. (2004) Drops in the ocean: the development of scientific and technological information services in Australia. In W.B. Rayward & M.E. Bowden (Eds.), The history and heritage of scientific and technological
information systems. Medford, NJ, USA: InfoToday for American Society for Information Science and Technology and Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Abstract This is a preliminary study of the extent to which the incorporation and use of local Australian information with international scientific output has been managed. Australia’s contribution to documentation in scientific research and development amounts to about 1 to 2 percent of total international output, depending on discipline. During the 1970s several local initiatives were undertaken to record Australian scientific publications and to meet scientific information needs, either within the framework of international information services or independently. During the 1970s Australian scientific information policy makers were in the vanguard of attempts to articulate public policy in relation to information provision and use and to establish a national information policy. An example of such a policy initiative was the Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee (STISEC) report, which made recommendations concerning the national provision of scientific and technical information services. The recommendations were not fully realized for three reasons: responsibility for driving the provision of the services was ill defined; there were funding constraints; and obtaining cooperation between stakeholding authorities was difficult. Despite these problems a variety of scientific and technical information services emerged in Australia, and brief descriptions of some notable examples of these are provided. The paper concludes by suggesting that a systematic study of the history of the database services that concentrated on the factors influencing their development and the various transitions they have undergone, including cessation, would be useful. Such a study would not only chronicle their history but would also throw light on the development in Australia of an important aspect of the information society and the information economy that underpins it.
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Introduction The development of scientific and technical information (STI) services in Australia was stimulated during the 1960s by several factors, including a nascent information policy that considered STI resources inadequate for economic development and prompted attempts to address the deficiencies; improved dissemination of information as international publishers of abstracting and indexing services began to include their output in information retrieval systems; concerns about the low proportion of Australian publications recorded in international information services, leading to a desire to complement these services with local ones that incorporated additional material; and a desire to record comprehensively the national scientific publication output. It was not until the 1970s, however, that formal studies quantifying the extent of recorded Australian publication emerged. In some cases these studies were associated by policy initiatives—most notably the work of the 1972–73 Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee (STISEC). This group of prominent business and industry leaders was commissioned by the National Library with the support of the government, and it reported to the National Library’s Council concerning the coordinated development of local services. Yet despite such initiatives Australian on-line information services were established in a fragmentary manner. In some respects the progress they achieved was in spite of policy and the lack of coordination between the lead institutions that established and provided the services. This paper presents a preliminary investigation intended to precede a more extensive study of the genesis of these services. The larger study will comprise multiple case studies of the STI services using a protocol that considers the services as information management applications involving overlapping administrative, analytical, and operational domains.
Analysis of Australian STI Publishing Australia’s contribution to the literature of science and technology is commensurate with a country of relatively small population (about 14 million at the time of STI service origins in the 1960s and now about 18 million). However, in such fields as astronomy, medical science, and certain branches of agriculture its output has
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been disproportionately high. While sensitivity to the relatively small proportion of Australian literature being indexed internationally began to appear in the 1960s, serious attempts at quantification were not carried out until the following decade. These were undertaken as part of the process of identifying what it was that the institutions that were setting up services had to cover. However, such analyses remained internal documents and were generally not published until the services were reviewed some years later. For example, Abbott (1981) reported on 1970s data showing the number of Australian journals covered by thirteen overseas STI databases; he noted that there continued to be gaps locally, resulting from areas that Australian Science Index (ASI) was not covering. ASI was an index to Australian science in general that had been produced by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) from 1976. In 1983 Alex Byrne considered the extent to which Australian literature was not covered in international databases under the provocative title “How to Lose a Nation’s Literature.” His analysis, which was of social sciences and the humanities as well as of STI, showed that the coverage of literature from Australian sources varied, usually within the range of 1 to 3 percent of the global output. He compared the international coverage of Australian STI research literature with its coverage in the ASI, noting that coverage of Australian periodicals by the relevant international abstracting and indexing journals varied from between about 20 to 80 percent of what was being covered by ASI. He provided little comment, however, on the criteria, such as regional focus or refereeing policies, used by the international databases to select what they would include. In a later study Byrne (1984) quoted a Royal Australian Chemical Institute estimate that Australia produces 2 percent of the world’s scientific and technical literature, which was consistent with his own prior finding. He expressed concern that for engineering research there were no counterparts in Australia of the U.S. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) or the Comprehensive Dissertation Index. However, in considering the implications of analyses of this kind, it should be remembered that many Australian researchers published outside Australia. Herb Landau (1984) noted, for example, that in the Compendex engineering database for 1973 to 1982, of 16,952 authors with Australian affiliations only 7,083 published their papers in Australian publications (42 percent).
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Further analysis of this type was not reported for another decade. When it came, it was prompted by the increasing efforts of universities to find performance measures for their academic staff in terms of research publication. Pam Royle (1994) used Journal Citation Reports from the citation indexes of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) to consider impact factors for Australian science and social science journals. These factors were found to be relatively low. Royle also analyzed contributions in different disciplines to determine how citation index coverage compared with specialist database coverage. She confirmed that approximately 2 percent of total international output across the sciences and social sciences emanated from Australia, consistent with Byrnes’s earlier study. However, when examining discipline-oriented databases, she found variations in such fields as geosciences (3.91 percent), medicine (1.23 percent), and agriculture (2.79 percent). Studies of the health sciences by Paul Bourke and Linda Butler (1997) found that Australia’s share of publications in ISI medical journals increased by 25 percent between 1986 and 1995. The average “relative citation impact” (the share of international citations relative to the share of international publications) for the period was 1 (a relatively strong indicator of notice attracted). These same researchers, working with databases of Australian material derived from ISI’s citation databases, have also conducted longitudinal studies of scientific output. They have used these principally to consider measures of research productivity. But Butler (2001), referring to earlier work on Australian scientific publication as a whole, showed that the trend, which had reached a low point of 1.88 percent of the international total reported by ISI in 1988 (Bourke & Butler, 1993), had in 1999 risen to 2.23 percent (a 13 percent increase that was matched by a similar share of citations in the period from 1990 to 1998). This apparent increase may be explained by the inclusion of publications arising from greatly increased international collaboration. Relative impact, which declined in all fields except the agricultural sciences through the 1980s, has had a more varied performance in the following decade, the 1990s, with both physical and biomedical sciences rising and earth sciences returning to former levels. Butler finds that although the amount of publication is increasing significantly, more of it is appearing in lowerimpact journals. Part of the explanation for this, she suggests, may be the “publish or perish” syndrome. Because allocation of public research funding to universities had
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been based to some extent on amount of publication by researchers, it may have stimulated an increase in gratuitous publication.
Information Policy Influence on STI Services At various times over the last few decades attempts have been made to institute national information policy in Australia. The different parties involved have changed over time. Toward the end of the last century there had been increasing appreciation of the importance of the emerging “information society,” the need for an information infrastructure to support it with emphasis on electronic commerce, and the value of providing government information. A series of government inquiries investigated federal roles and responsibilities in the area. Information policy development is presently undertaken in the Ministry for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, and in the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), which was established in 1997 as a separate entity within this ministry following a number of government inquiries into information technology development and the information economy in the early 1990s. NOIE is responsible for coordinating the development of broad policy relating to regulatory, legal, and physical infrastructure for the provision of on-line information and on-line information services. This responsibility includes facilitation of electronic commerce. NOIE also oversees the development of policies for applying new technology to government administration. STI services are not explicitly on its agenda, although they may of course be subsumed within information provision. In the thirty years prior to this period a consciousness of the need for information policy developed, but the approach was disjointed and the elements of policy were accorded quite different priorities. A disparate range of agencies was concerned with these priorities, including provision of STI, which was then prominent on the information policy agenda. The Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services (AACOBS) was created in 1956. In the 1960s the council became concerned about the adequacy of recording Australian publications and providing access to international publications— that is, providing a national resource through the nation’s libraries. Although its effectiveness as a policy body has been queried (Stockdale, 1984), the council was
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successful in promoting aspects of bibliography and identifying subject areas that needed attention, including those in science and technology. The National Library of Australia (NLA) was closely associated with AACOBS, and early in the 1970s the NLA was responsible for the creation of STISEC, an influential national committee to investigate and report on the state of STI services. STISEC recommended both the development of a national information policy and a national central STI authority (Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee, 1973, 1975). This view was echoed at the time, for example, in an OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) examiner’s report on science and technology in Australia, which included a section on STI (National Library of Australia, 1978, p. 13). The proposed central STI authority would advise on information policy and, among other things, would foster coordination and extension and promote orderly development of scientific and technological library and information services nationally. This authority would also have an innovating role in establishing such services as computer-based information services, document collection services for the delivery of source material, translation services, research into STI services, and education for such services and become a focus for international liaison. A survey to inform STISEC about information services was based on a random sampling of scientists from a wide range of professional groups. About two thousand responses were received, and findings included those shown in Table 1. • 97 percent had no formal selective dissemination of information service. • 25 percent lacked ready access to a library that could supply their information requirements. • 33 percent could not obtain literature searches when required. • 45 percent could not acquire journal literature speedily enough. • 75 percent had received no formal training in searching for scientific and technical information. • Large sections of important material—patents, standards, government and nongovernment report literature, review articles, abstracts and indexes, current awareness bulletins, conference proceedings, and foreign-language literature—were often inaccessible, unavailable, and unused. Table 1. Example findings on the ability of scientists to find information (STISEC Report 1973, pp. 6–7)
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Horton (1984) considered that the STISEC report was the prime factor leading to the amendment of the National Library Act to make it clear that NLA’s responsibilities included science and technology. But a strong focus for STI leadership was never satisfactorily attained because the interests of the two most prominent and likely lead agencies, the NLA and CSIRO, were not fully reconciled. The NLA was established as a separate institution only in 1973 by an Act of Parliament. Previously the Australian Parliamentary Library had served both parliament and as the national library. STISEC was important in helping to define the role of the new institution that had already developed, in its previous incarnation, significant national bibliographic responsibilities involving the creation of a national union catalog and ongoing national bibliographies. CSIRO was established under the Science and Industry Research Act of 1949. Among its statutory functions were the collection, interpretation, and dissemination of information relating to scientific and technical matters and the publishing of scientific and technical reports, periodicals, and papers. It too had developed a national union catalog in its areas of interest and published periodical bibliographies. CSIRO, although forming to some extent a distributed national science library through the libraries associated with its various research branches, was reluctant to take on a greater resource-provision role without dramatic provision of additional funding. Following the STISEC reports CSIRO collaborated actively with other agencies in developing databases. Three separate organizational reviews made recommendations about developing CSIRO’s provision of STI services (Garrow, 1983, p. 6). One report noted that in relation to the services provided by the Australian National Scientific and Technological Library (ANSTEL), rationalization, correlation, and the avoidance of duplication of resources and functions with CSIRO were needed. Although the report recognized that considerable opportunities existed to relate the ANSTEL service to CSIRO’s Central Information Library and Editorial Service, it made no specific recommendations about this (Independent Inquiry into the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, 1977). ANSTEL had been created by the NLA as one of three “national libraries” (the others being for social sciences and the humanities) to function within the NLA, as components of what was called the Australian Library Based Information System. ANSTEL was to provide, among other things, an Australian industry information
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network that would produce STI current-awareness bulletins and develop an industryreports database (National Library of Australia, 1977). Unfortunately the NLA was unable to promote the Australian Library Based Information System successfully or obtain enough resources to make its “libraries within a library” viable. All the same the NLA was able to point to developments under the umbrella of ANSTEL that had already been embarked on some years earlier. In 1969, for example, NLA had entered an agreement with the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council to begin to offer services based on MEDLARS that came into effect in 1971 (Middleton, 1977). NLA had also used Canadian CAN/SDI software to provide current-awareness services from BIOSIS and ERIC databases. Also noteworthy was the NLA’s ERIC research project, which ran from October 1972 to the beginning of 1974. This joint investigation by the NLA and IBM’s Systems Development Institute examined the viability of provision of information services in education. The project was significant for STI services because its success led to the creation of Ausinet, a multidisciplinary information retrieval service (McCallum, 1983). ACI Computer Services provided the service network for Ausinet that was to provide the platform for databases across the spectrum of knowledge and stimulate Australian database development. Richardson (1984) was prescient in saying that Australian libraries are likely to view the 1970s as a major watershed in their development. After a decade of service developments some disquiet remained about what was seen as the lack of a central authority to lead and coordinate such developments (Swan, 1983, p.147). Nonetheless, the ANSTEL director at the time, Bryan Yates, suggested that if a national database policy were needed, then it would be necessary to demonstrate the failings of present services: how the present situation could be improved had there been an appropriate policy in place; how mechanisms could be established for working out, implementing, and costing the policy and identifying the source of funding; and how monitoring mechanisms could be put in place. He did not think any of this was necessary because ad hoc development had resulted in worthwhile achievements, and given the practicalities the gaps were not major and organizations already in existence could be encouraged to fill the gaps (Yates, 1983, p. 30).
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During this period little relevant policy development occurred outside CSIRO and NLA to foster coordinated STI services development in Australia. The federal and state governments jointly through the Standing Committee of the Cultural Ministers’ Council set up an Australian Libraries and Information Council in 1982 to advise at all government levels, but the council self-destructed and merged with AACOBS after five years to create the Australian Council of Library and Information Services. Reflecting on this several years later, Philip Kent (2001) thought that the responsibility for STI services had then become the joint responsibility of CSIRO, the universities, and the government research agencies, but that ‘. . . what is missing is serious government money to lubricate science information resources across the whole country.” (p. 1) The federal Department of Science for a period showed some interest in STI. In 1985 it prepared a discussion paper on information services policy (Australia Department of Science, 1985) and set up meetings to discuss relevant issues, for example, a workshop on STI in 1986 (“Scientific and technical information,” 1986). At this workshop speakers commented that many services seemed to be available but they were not being used effectively. Reasons advanced to explain this phenomenon included lack of awareness, lack of training, and simply the lack of resources needed to encourage their use. There were also calls for further policy initiatives to improve STI services, for example, by identifying an agency at the national level that would facilitate coordination between the services. This is ironic in light of similar requests over a decade earlier by STISEC. Nothing came of these proposals.
Emergence of Databases Despite the misgivings about uncoordinated development, ad hoc initiatives beginning in the 1970s resulted in the setup of extensive information services based on international databases, complemented by the production of local databases. NLA and CSIRO contributed to these databases along with several other agencies. The databases sometimes complemented an international service and at other times constituted part of a service developed to support local requirements. Several local databases were established:
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Australian Bibliography on Agriculture (ABOA) The ABOA, begun in 1975 by CSIRO, grew from the Australian component of the international AGRIS service with approximately three thousand records per year covering literature in the usual research forms, such as journal articles, conference papers, reports, and books. It also included visual media, pamphlets, and maps. Records retrospective to 1941 were progressively included. The database was hosted on CSIRO’s own Australis network. Later it was distributed via the NLA and Ferntree’s Ausinet network. From 1996 it has been available through RMIT Publishing’s Informit in both an on-line and a CDROM format. From 1999 it has been made available by Infoscan, which also produces the indexing, through its Agricultural and Natural Resources Online facility. In addition to the database the service has been used for producing annual bibliographies in print.
Australian Earth Sciences Information Service (AESIS) The Australian Mineral Foundation instituted this service in 1976. It covered earth sciences literature amounting to about four thousand documents per year from 1975, though there are retrospective records back to 1907. Various other products produced from the cumulative database included the print publications AESIS Quarterly and AESIS Special Lists. Support for the service ceased in 2001, although attempts are being made to restart it.
Australasian Medical Index (AMI) The NLA began this service in 1983 as a complement to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINE. It covers about two thousand Australian items of health and medicine literature annually and has included material back to 1968. It was hosted on the Australian MEDLINE Network until that facility was closed and has since been available as an Informit database. Since 1996 it has embraced a link to Meditext, which provides full text information. The scope is described in detail by the NLA (2003).
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Australian Science Index (ASI) CSIRO began this service in 1976 and terminated it to the consternation of users in 1983, at which point it had been covering about eleven thousand items annually. CSIRO was unable to justify the continuing cost of running the service, particularly as it was seen to overlap in part with a number of other databases. It had been mounted initially on CSIRONET, then moved to Ausinet.
Australian Transport Literature Index (ATRI) The Australian Road Research Board began this service in 1977. Approximately 1,600 items are included annually, and about 30 percent are also provided for the System for International Road Research Documentation. The database was resident on the Ausinet facility from 1978 to 1982 and later became available through Informit Online. ATRI is also used to produce the Australian Road Index, Australian Road Research in Progress, and ARRB Publications Index.
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Information (ANSTI) The Australian Atomic Energy Commission, now known as the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), began this service in 1972 as input to the International Nuclear Information System (INIS). It includes material from 1970 and amounts to about eight hundred to a thousand items per year in the fields of locally published nuclear science and engineering. The database as part of INIS is available from ANSTO. As ANSTI it is available through Informit Online.
ENGINE The Institution of Engineers, Australia, has included about 1,300 engineering items annually in this database since 1982 (although there is some coverage to 1980). Initially mounted on Australis, the service is now available through Informit.
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STREAMLINE The Department of Resources and Energy started this service in 1982. It focuses on water resources literature. It has since been produced by Infoscan through Agricultural and Natural Resources Online at the rate of about 2,500 items annually.
Each of these services indexes research and technical and academic literature. The extent to which they pursue other materials varies; for example, some report projects in progress, and ABOA includes pamphlets.
Conclusion Concerted efforts were made to develop STI services in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s within a public information policy framework, but although these efforts led to greater awareness of the issues, national development lacked a strategy that stakeholders could follow to avoid gaps in service and duplication. This situation was exacerbated by funding constraints. However, a rapidly developing computing and communications environment coupled with the efforts of some visionaries working independently in different agencies saw to it that the country was comparatively well served using a combination of international and local services. Data about the structure and content of these and other STI databases as well as those in the social sciences and humanities and nonbibliographic databases were compiled for a period during the 1980s by the Australian Database Development Association (Quinn, 1988). Such agencies as CSIRO and the NLA are prominent in the creation of services; however, government departments and industry are also well represented. Australia is a highly developed western nation with an active research community both in the sciences and in the social and human sciences. Given its geographical isolation and size, communications technology has been of great importance in the development of its infrastructure for research and development. Insight into the ways in which Australia assimilated the “information revolution” to become part of the global information economy and society could be gained from a
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systematic study of information management during the emergence and development of computer-based information services. Such a study would require both comparative descriptive and analytical data. Descriptive data might deal with such database characteristics as production, coverage, source documents, search aids such as thesauri, and any special features of the record format reflecting distinctive aspects of the subject at hand. In my recent book on information management (Middleton, 2002) I suggest a conceptual approach for a discipline of information management. This framework may be used to examine STI services with respect to three broad domains. These domains comprise administration (policy and planning aspects and strategic approaches in general); an analytical domain focusing on clienteles and resources (user needs and systems analysis; information resources analysis, including audits and assessing information worth; and evaluation procedures); and the operational domain, which refers to the different tasks carried out during staged processes of information handling, for example, the creation, distribution, organization, retrieval, navigation processes for interaction, and presentation. The broad questions of policy presented here would form a backdrop to such a comparative systems study. A preliminary case study to test the methodology has been carried out on the Australian Earth Sciences Information Services but is not further reported on here1.
References Abbott, D. (1981). Australian indexing services. In D. H. Borchardt & J. Thawley (Eds.), Bibliographical services to the nation: The next decade; proceedings of a conference held in Sydney 26–27 August 1980 (pp. 71–86). Canberra: National Library of Australia. Australia Department of Science. (1985). A national information policy for Australia: Discussion paper. Canberra: Department of Science. Bourke, P., & Butler, L. (1993). A crisis for Australian science (Performance indicators project monograph series no. 1). Canberra: Australian National University. Bourke, P., & Butler, L. (1997). Mapping Australia’s basic research in the medical and health sciences. Medical Journal of Australia, 167, 610–613. Butler, L. (2001). What is behind Australia’s increased share of ISI publications? In M. Davis & C. S. Wilson (Eds.), 8th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics: Proceedings
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ISSI-2001, Sydney 16–20 July 2001 (pp. 89–101). Sydney: University of New South Wales Bibliometric and Informetric Research Group. Byrne, A. (1983). How to lose a nation’s literature: Database coverage of Australian research. Database, 6(3), 10–17. Byrne, A. (1984). Overseas database coverage of Australian engineering. In L. Lane (Ed.), Engineering information and documentation in Australia: Problems and solutions; proceedings of a national seminar conducted by the Footscray Institute of Technology, 25th November, 1983 (pp. 53–62). Footscray, Australia: Footscray Institute of Technology Library. Garrow, C. (1983). Keynote address: the information imperative and Australian agriculture. In P. Montgomery (Ed.), Computerised information systems in agriculture; proceedings of a national workshop on developments in computerised information systems in agriculture, Melbourne, Victoria, June 22 and 23, 1983 (pp. 4-12). Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Victorian Department of Agriculture. Horton, A. (1984). Groping toward information policy. In H. Bryan & J. Horacek (Eds.), Australian academic libraries in the seventies: Essays in honour of Dietrich Borchardt (pp. 5–32). St Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press. Independent Inquiry into the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. (1977). Report. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Kent, P. G. (2001). Special librarians: Past, present and future? Lesle Symes Memorial Lecture 2001. Paper presented at Rivers of knowledge; 9th Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference, Melbourne. Available: http://conferences.alia.org.au/shllc2001/papers/kent.html (accessed 24 July 2003). Landau, H. B. (1984). Identifying Australian engineering information for input to Engineering Index; and a perspective on future developments in engineering information. In L. Lane (Ed.), Engineering information and documentation in Australia: Problems and solutions; proceedings of a national seminar conducted by the Footscray Institute of Technology, 25th November, 1983 (pp. 105–120). Footscray, Australia: Footscray Institute of Technology Library. McCallum, I. (1983). ACI’s role in the development of Australian bibliographic databases. In G. Peguero (Ed.), Australian clearing houses and data bases: Towards a national policy; proceedings of a national seminar conducted at Footscray Institute of Technology, 19 November 1982 (pp. 51–65). Footscray, Australia: Footscray Institute of Technology Library. Middleton, M. (1977). Developments in the Australasian MEDLARS service. LASIE, 7(5), 4–15. Middleton, M. (2002). Information management: A consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy. Wagga Wagga, Australia: Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies. National Library of Australia. (1977). Towards an Australian industry information network. Canberra: National Library of Australia.
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National Library of Australia. (1978). Progress in UNISIST activity: The first three years of the UNISIST programme in Australia, 1974–77. Canberra: National Library of Australia. National
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http://www.nla.gov.au/ami/ (accessed 24 July 2003). Quinn, S. (Ed.). (1988). Directory of Australian and New Zealand databases (3rd ed.). Hawthorn, Australia: Australian Database Development Association. Richardson, W. D. (1984). MEDLARS to DIALOG and beyond. In H. Bryan & J. Horacek (Eds.), Australian academic libraries in the seventies: Essays in honour of Dietrich Borchardt (pp. 132–144). St Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press. Royle, P. (1994). A citation analysis of Australian science and social science journals. Australian Academic and Research Libraries, 25(3), 162–171. Scientific and technological information: Proceedings of a workshop, Canberra, 20 March 1986. (1986). Canberra: Department of Science. Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee. (1973). The STISEC report: Report to the Council of the National Library of Australia by the Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee, May 1973. Volume 1: Scientific and technological information services in Australia. Canberra: National Library of Australia. Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee. (1975). The STISEC report: Report to the Council of the National Library of Australia by the Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee, May 1973. Volume 2: Procedures, evidence examined, findings and appendixes. Canberra: National Library of Australia. Stockdale, N. (1984). AACOBS: The search for a role. In H. Bryan & J. Horacek (Eds.), Australian academic libraries in the seventies: Essays in honour of Dietrich Borchardt (pp. 145–165). St Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press. Swan, E. (1983). Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy. In G. Peguero (Ed.), Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy; proceedings of a national seminar conducted at Footscray Institute of Technology, 19 November 1982 (pp. 139148). Footscray, Australia: Footscray Institute of Technology Library. Yates, B. (1983). The possible role of the National Library of Australia in the development of clearing houses and associated data bases. In G. Peguero (Ed.), Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy; proceedings of a national seminar conducted at Footscray Institute of Technology, 19 November 1982 (pp. 21-33). Footscray, Australia: Footscray Institute of Technology Library.
Footnote 1
A copy of this analysis is available from the author.
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5.2.
Journal article: Australian STI services history and development
Detail of the case studies of Australian STI services was brought together in two papers that examined the services with respect to information management. The first of these papers which focuses on characteristics and historical development of the services was published as:
Middleton, M. (2006) Scientific and technological information services in Australia. I. History and development. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 37(2): 111-135.
Abstract An investigation of the development of Australian scientific and technological information (STI) services has been undertaken. It comprises a consideration of the characteristics and development of the services, which is the focus of this part of the paper, along with a broader examination of discipline formation in information management covered in Part II. This first part of the study provides a historical overview of the development of several of the services that were established in the 1970s. Specific reference is made to Australian Agriculture and Natural Resources Online (AANRO), the Australian Medical Index (AMI), Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Information (ANSTI), Australian Transport Index (ATRI), AusGeoref and its forerunner AESIS, and the Australian engineering database (ENGINE). The account includes a summary of the policy environment that influenced the development of databases that supported the original STI services. Some observations are made about STI publishing output from Australia, the way it is reported, and how appropriate reporting and documentation of that output might continue.
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Introduction Information management is a term that has been appropriated by various groups of information professionals since the 1970s and applied to a wide range functions. It therefore suffers a variety of definitions that differ in emphasis according to the disciplinary background of the definers. Emphasis may be on systems for conveying information (of concern to those working in corporate management, information systems and content management), or on the documents that carry information (as in recordkeeping, librarianship, document management). The various occupations that pursue their distinct visions of information management have differentiated themselves through attention to different types of documents and different approaches to information organisation. However, the prevalence of digital media, the increasingly inclusive utilisation of metadata across document types, and acceptance of information as a corporate resource, mean that a concerted view of information management is becoming more likely. Wilson is among the more prominent writers who have paid attention to definition of information management. His thorough observations1 are not repeated here, except to note that they encompass all types of information resources from within or outside organisations. The shaping of disciplinary understanding would be assisted by case studies of information management application. There are examples of these in the literature2, but they are not documented with reference to a disciplinary framework. The following account uses an information management perspective to investigate Australian scientific and technological information (STI) services. The work is in two parts. The first part (this paper) is an examination of the history and development of the STI services, with some remarks about their continuation and necessity. The second part3 is a consideration of the extent to which a consolidated view of information management may be applied to provision of STI services.
1
T D Wilson ‘Information management’ in J. Feather & R. P. Sturges (eds) International encyclopedia of information and library science 2nd edn Routledge London 2003 pp 263-267.
2
E Orna Practical information policies 2nd edn Gower Aldershot 1999 – this includes evaluations, but not with respect to disciplinary principles; and S Simmons (ed) Information insights: Case studies in information management Aslib/IMI London 1999 – comprising interviews with information managers.
3
M Middleton ‘Scientific and technological information services in Australia II. Discipline formation in information management’ Australian Academic and Research Libraries vol 37 no 3 2006.
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STI services were chosen for the study for a number of reasons. They were expected to represent many of the purposes to which information management principles could be put into practice. They each provide an example of a service that is produced by one institution principally for the benefit of many others. They were developed at the time when consciousness of information management principles was nascent. They form a relatively distinct set of cases for examination. They appear to be a valuable resource whose continuation cannot be taken for granted, and which may benefit from exposure to further scrutiny. Many types of services or systems that involve information management could be examined. They range from systems for inventory control or personnel management, to services that are more concerned with documents in the conventional sense such as recordkeeping or cataloguing services. The discrete set group of services chosen has been maintained continuously over an extended period of twenty to thirty years. Similar services in the social sciences and humanities exist. Although many of the observations in this work may also be applied to such services, they are outside the purview of this work and may be the subject of separate study. STI services themselves are sometimes differentiated into bibliographic (reporting the literature using metadata), and non-bibliographic (maintaining the type of factual information that when online is increasingly used for e-research through time series and other data compilations). Bibliographic services tend to be fewer in number but more widely used. For example Russell and Hartwell4 in a directory of agricultural information sources then available in Australia, identified 21 bibliographic databases, many of them produced outside Australia, and 62 non-bibliographic databases, all produced in Australia. This work is confined to bibliographic services, and comprises case studies of six such services.
Research method This paper has arisen from a detailed case study of several STI services using a case study protocol, and supported by interviews with key participants, exploration and use of different versions of databases produced, and reference to literature, archives, and supporting material created to support users of databases. A descriptive 4
H Russell & S L Hartwell, S. L. (eds) Guide to Australian agricultural information sources and services rev edn Victorian Department of Agriculture Melbourne 1983.
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case study methodology5 is applied in which the unit of analysis is a system of action in this situation the establishment and maintenance of a service, applied over multiple cases. The project comprised: •
Project objectives including: providing an overview of development of STI services in Australia; extending this overview with a detailed investigation that takes account of public policy influences and corporate imperatives; and testing the utility of a case study procedure derived from a description of discipline formation.
•
Collection of information via a combination of approaches requiring examination of published and archival documentation; interviewing of key figures who were involved in the creation of the national services; and study of the systems underlying, and functionality provided by each of the services.
•
Case study questions structured according to the context of a recently written book on information management6.
•
Outcomes to be documented case studies of the STI services, an overview of development reported in Part I, and analysis of discipline formation reported in Part II with respect to operational, analytical and administrative domains. In Part I, the characteristics of the databases are compared within the context of
some commentary on national scientific publication, the use of databases that record the output, and public policy influence on their development. This leads to some discussion about the ways in which continuation of the STI services may be ensured.
Scientific publication output Bibliographic STI services have performed an important role in the information life cycle. Secondary sources of information such as specialist bibliographies on scientific subjects originated in the eighteenth century, and by the beginning of the twentieth century had been formalised into abstracting and indexing services such as
5
R K Yin Case study research: Design and methods Sage Publications Thousand Oaks 2003.
6
M Middleton Information management: a consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy CSU Centre for Information Studies Wagga Wagga 2002.
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Chemical Abstracts that were the forerunners of many of the STI databases available today. The future of the scholarly publication that is reported and accumulated in these databases has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent times through conferences and numerous publications. Stakeholders such as authors, editors, publishers and research managers continue to grapple with the changes made possible in publishing models through development in information and communications technology (ICT). Greater apparent accessibility through the Internet, and particularly the Web, has been facilitated by systems such as content management and cooperative work groups, together with facilities such as digital archives, and e-prints servers. These have been bolstered by what is sometimes called the hidden Web – the great number of databases available via subscription through Web interfaces, though not usually available to Web search engine crawlers. Many of these databases have been available since long before the Web, at least for provision of metadata. They provide a continuing impetus for information quality, and increasingly they link full text with metadata. Yet they must contend with multiple alternative avenues to the same information, as access to the same digital content is facilitated through stand alone and aggregated portals of universities and professional associations7. Increased access does not necessarily equate with improved information organisation. Although a case may be made for multiple metadata descriptions to suit different contexts of use, many of the avenues to the same content may provide cursory or uncontrolled metadata, and rely on full text indexing for access. The resulting reduced ability to filter and refine search results could see the document hidden within large yields of search results. The importance of providing access to the nation’s research output was recognised long before the Web, and was one of the early stimulants to information policy discussion. In the area of STI, Australia’s contribution to the overall literature is about 2% of the world total, though in some fields - certain branches of astronomy, medical science, and agriculture - output has been disproportionately high. 7
A case in point is contributions to AARL which are made available on ALIA’s publications server. Metadata for the contributions is provided in a number of international and national databases. Some of these, for example the ACER database A+ Education, and the NLA APAIS database also provide links through to the full text at ALIA. As authors hold copyright for the material, contributions may also be made available via their own institution’s servers in the form of preprints or postprints, thereby becoming accessible directly via search engines, or via more refined approaches such as NLA Arrow or Google Scholar.
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Recognition of the relatively small proportion of Australian literature being indexed internationally happened in the 1960s, but it took some time before there were significant attempts to quantify what was not being covered. These attempts were generally undertaken as part of the process of identifying publishing that had to be inspected by institutions establishing database services. Such analyses were internal working documents. Some became public as databases were created along with guides to database coverage. However there were some published analyses across databases. For example, in 1981 Abbott reported on 1970s data showing the number of Australian journals covered by thirteen overseas STI databases, and noted that there continued to be gaps locally, resulting from areas that CSIRO’s Australian Science Index (ASI), extant since 1976, was not covering8. In 1983, Byrne looked into social sciences and the humanities as well as of STI9. His analysis showed that the coverage of literature from Australian sources varied, usually within the range of 1-3 % of the global output. He also compared the international coverage of Australian STI research literature with its coverage in ASI, noting that coverage of Australian periodicals by the relevant international abstracting and indexing journals duplicated between about 20-80% of what was being covered by ASI depending upon discipline. Later he expressed concern that for engineering research there were no counterparts in Australia of the U.S. National Technical Information Service (NTIS) or the Comprehensive Dissertation Index10. These early analyses were confined to Australian publications and were not investigating the significant amount of material published outside Australia by Australian authors. It was another decade before further analyses of this type were undertaken, for example by Royle11 who analysed contributions in different disciplines 8
D Abbott ‘Australian indexing services’ in D. H. Borchardt & J. Thawley (eds) Bibliographical services to the nation: the next decade; proceedings of a conference held in Sydney 26-27 August 1980 NLA Canberra 1981 pp 71-86.
9
A Byrne ‘How to lose a nation's literature: database coverage of Australian research’ Database vol 6 no 3 1983 pp10-17.
10
A Byrne ‘Overseas database coverage of Australian engineering’ in L. Lane (ed.) Engineering information and documentation in Australia: problems and solutions; proceedings of a national seminar conducted by the Footscray Institute of Technology, 25th November, 1983 Footscray Institute of Technology Library Footscray 1984 pp 53-62.
11
P Royle ‘A citation analysis of Australian science and social science journals’ Australian Academic and Research Libraries vol 25 no 3 1994 pp162-171.
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to determine how citation index coverage compared with specialist database coverage. She confirmed that approximately 2% of total international output across the sciences and social sciences emanated from Australia, while finding significant variations in such fields as geosciences (3.91%), medicine (1.23%), and agriculture (2.79%). She also noted the disparity between the rate at which Australian journals cited overseas journals and the extent to which the overseas journals reciprocated. Increasing efforts of universities to find performance measures for their academic staff in terms of research publication, prompted further research with citation analysis. We begin to see a re-orientation from what has been published, to how much influence that publication has supposedly achieved. This means that greater attention is being paid to impact measures, typically derived from the citation counts of publications reported by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) citation indexes for example through the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). Although caution in interpretation of such data has been advised12, making use of metrics such as JCR provides appears to be gathering momentum at the present time as attempts are made to derive scholarly performance indicators for Australia’s incipient Research Quality Framework. Using ISI data, Butler with others, has conducted a number of analyses of Australian share of scientific publication and of impact in different sectors. Studies of the health sciences found that Australia’s share of publications in ISI medical journals increased by 25% between 1986 and 199513. The average “relative citation impact” (the share of international citations relative to the share of international publications) for the period was 1 (a relatively strong indicator of notice attracted). Longitudinal studies of scientific output have also been used to consider measures of research productivity. A low point of 1.88% of the international total reported by ISI in 198814, had in 1999 risen to 2.23% (a 13% increase that was matched by a similar share of citations in the period from 1990 to 1998)15. 12
P Royle & R Over 'The use of bibliometric indicators to measure the research productivity of Australian academics' Australian Academic and Research Libraries vol 25 no 2 1994 pp77-88.
13
P Bourke & L Butler ‘Mapping Australia's basic research in the medical and health sciences’ Medical Journal of Australia vol 167 no11-12 1997 pp610-613.
14
P Bourke & L Butler A crisis for Australian science (Performance indicators project monograph series no. 1) Australian National University Canberra 1993.
15
Based upon fractional counts of authors for collaborative publication by L Butler ‘What is behind Australia's increased share of ISI publications?’ in M. Davis & C S Wilson (eds) 8th
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This apparent increase may be explained by the inclusion of publications arising from greatly increased international collaboration. Relative impact, which declined in all fields except the agricultural sciences through the 1980s, has had a more varied performance in the following decade, the 1990s, with both physical and biomedical sciences rising and earth sciences returning to former levels. Butler finds that although the amount of publication is increasing significantly, more of it is appearing in lowerimpact journals. Part of the explanation for this, she suggests, may be the “push to evaluate research on the basis of publication output, with little reference to the quality of that output” 16. Because allocation of public research funding to universities had been based to some extent on amount of publication by researchers, it may have stimulated an increase in gratuitous publication. Adoption of impact factor measures further predisposes academic researchers to publish in highly ranked international journals rather than national ones. Determinants of quality are difficult to substantiate and this makes the comparison of impact factors contentious. Yet there is a need to gather more data on the local impact factors of national scholarly publications whose viability is in danger unless they become more highly regarded internationally. Fostering local publication requires commitment from professional associations, embracing of rigorous approaches to refereeing, and improving digital visibility. Among factors that might promote local publication are: •
Ensuring that those who are helping to frame research quality measures pay particular attention to the need for support of high quality national journals and the local impact that these may achieve.
•
Creating citation databases of national journals to complement ISI data.
•
Increasing refereeing rigour and filtering of articles for local journals, including stronger association with output of refereed conference publications.
•
Raising the international profile of journals by promoting them as international journals based in Australia, rather than Australian journals with some international content. International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics: proceedings ISSI-2001, Sydney 16-20 July 2001 Sydney, NSW, Australia: UNSW Bibliometric and Informetric Research Group, Sydney, 2001 pp89-101.
16
L Butler Monitoring Australia's scientific research: Partial indicators of Australia's research performance Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 2001.
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•
Maintaining an investment in metainformation production and aggregation for our own literature in concert with that of international equivalent databases. This investigation is concerned principally with the last of the points made
above with a focus on STI databases.
Database development and information policy Several factors contributed to the development of Australian STI services during the 1960s including: •
Recognition of the need for an information policy framework to promote a more significant role for STI resources in economic development.
•
Improved dissemination of information as international publishers of abstracting and indexing services began to consolidate their output in databases, and associate these databases with effective information retrieval systems.
•
Concerns about the low proportion of local output recorded in international publications and the need to complement it with local material.
•
A desire to record comprehensively the national scientific documentation output. The uneasy connection of public policy direction an ad hoc institutional
initiative has been described in more detail elsewhere17. However, some aspects of the relationship are reviewed here as a preamble to analysis of information services. It was the library community that was most actively concerned with policy to frame the development of STI services. In 1972–73 a group of prominent business and industry leaders was commissioned by the National Library of Australia (NLA) with government support, to form the Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee (STISEC). STISEC commissioned formal studies quantifying the
17
M Middleton ‘Drops in the ocean: the development of scientific and technological information services in Australia’ in W B Rayward & M E Bowden (eds) The history and heritage of scientific and technological information systems Information Today for ASIST & CHF Medford 2004 pp353-360. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00000689/ or http://www.chemheritage.org/events/asist2002/proceedings.html.
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extent of recorded Australian publication, and reported to NLA’s Council concerning the coordinated development of local services. STISEC recommended both the development of a national information policy, and a national central STI authority to act as focus for activities and promote their orderly development18. Other policy documents in the area, for example an OECD examiner's report on science and technology in Australia, supported this view 19. Horton20 considered that the STISEC report was the prime factor leading to the amendment of the National Library Act to make it clear that NLA’s responsibilities included science and technology. However it can be said that a focus for STI leadership was never satisfactorily attained, because the interests of the two most prominent and likely lead agencies, NLA and CSIRO, were not fully reconciled. CSIRO although forming to some extent a distributed national science library was reluctant to take on a greater resource provision role without dramatic provision of additional resources. Among its statutory functions since its 1949 enabling Act, were the collection, interpretation, dissemination and publishing of information relating to scientific and technical matters. It observed part of this role through active collaboration with other agencies in the development of databases. An example was the Australian Bibliography on Agriculture (ABOA). Repeated organisational reviews made recommendations about CSIRO’s role in provision of STI services21. For example, with respect to NLA’s Australian National Scientific and Technological Library (ANSTEL), it was thought that rationalisation, correlations, and lack of duplication of resources and functions were needed. One inquiry saw that there appeared to be opportunities to relate the ANSTEL service to CSIRO’s Central Information Library and Editorial Service (CILES). However its 18
Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee The STISEC report: report to the Council of the National Library of Australia by the Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee, May 197. Volume 1: Scientific and technological information services in Australia NLA Canberra 1973; Volume 2: Procedures, evidence examined, findings and appendixes NLA Canberra 1975.
19
National Library of Australia Progress in UNISIST activity: the first three years of the UNISIST programme in Australia 1974-77 NLA Canberra 1978 pp 13.
20
A Horton ‘Groping toward information policy’ in H. Bryan & J. Horacek (eds) Australian academic libraries in the seventies: essays in honour of Dietrich Borchardt University of Queensland Press St Lucia 1984 pp 5-32.
21
C Garrow ‘Keynote address: the information imperative and Australian agriculture’ in P. Montgomery (ed) Computerised information systems in agriculture; proceedings of a national workshop on developments in computerised information systems in agriculture, Melbourne, Victoria, June 22 and 23, 1983 Victorian Department of Agriculture, Melbourne 1983 pp 4-12.
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relevant recommendation went no further than to review the internal organisation of this information service ‘… in relation to an Australia-wide service involving all other possible sources, such as the National Library’22. ANSTEL had been created by NLA as one of three ‘national libraries’ (the others being for the social sciences and the humanities) to function within NLA, each promoted within the concept of an entity called the Australian Library Based Information System (ALBIS). ANSTEL embodied such initiatives as an industry network which was initiated to produce current awareness bulletins in STI, and an industry reports database23. Unfortunately the NLA was unable to communicate the objectives of ALBIS in a way that engaged the wider information services community. This was despite the claim of NLA Director-General of the time, George Chandler, that there was no opposition or jealousy from CSIRO or Australian government departments with respect to NLA’s plan for country wide information services based upon computers. He refuted library sector claims that his institution was running into friction with other powers wanting to carry out similar services24. Ultimately however, NLA was unable to obtain enough resources for the ‘libraries within a library’ policy to fulfil its many objectives. On the other hand, NLA was able to point to some successes. Earlier STI developments such as MEDLARS25, and current awareness services from BIOSIS databases were brought under the umbrella of ANSTEL. A significant venture outside ANSTEL was the ERIC research project which ran from 1972 to197426. Although it was developed using a database focused on education, this joint investigation by NLA and IBM was significant for STI services. Its success meant that it became a precursor
22
Independent Inquiry into the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Report AGPS Canberra 1977.
23
National Library of Australia Towards an Australian industry information network NLA Canberra 1977.
24
‘National Library has clear run says head’ Australian Financial Review 3684 2nd July 1975 p15.
25
M Middleton ‘Developments in the Australasian MEDLARS service’ LASIE Bulletin vol 7 no 5 1977 pp4-15.
26
D Killen ‘The National Library's ERIC SDI service: the first fifteen months’ Australian Academic and Research Libraries vol 7 no 2 1976 pp93-99.
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for AUSINET which was to provide a platform for databases across the spectrum of knowledge, and give stimulus to Australian database development27. Policy drive from outside the library community was slow in coming. Information policy at the time was of little interest to the emergent information and communication technology sectors. However, the scientific community began to state a need for effective information resources. ASTEC in a report examining science and technology in Australia28 made recommendations about supporting the development of library-based and other information services. Later, the federal Department of Science championed the effective provision of STI for research and industry29, and promoted coordination of services, for example at a national workshop30. At this forum discussion repeatedly referred to the ineffective use of the many services then underway. Reasons forwarded included lack of coordination, a need for identification of agency responsibilities at national level, insufficient awareness by potential users, and inadequate training. Reservations about the absence of overall guidance and authority for database development had been expressed for example by Swan31. However the view of ANSTEL’s then director was that if a national database policy were needed then it would be necessary to demonstrate the failings of present services, and show how policy could improve on existing mechanisms for costing, identifying funding sources, and establishing monitoring mechanisms32. Still, a number of piecemeal policy initiatives occurred within individual government departments that did stimulate the progress of STI services. In some respects the progress they achieved was in spite of 27
28
29
30
AUSINET was established as a cooperative enterprise in which a number of databases were pooled for shared access. It was initiated in 1976 following the success of a project to enable searching of the ERIC database, and the desire of Monash University for further development of online facilities. Following discussions with NLA, those two institutions along with eight others including ARRB became founding members. Australian Science and Technology Council Science and technology in Australia, 1977-78: A report to the Prime Minister AGPS Canberra 1978-1979 vol 1 pp11-12. Australian Department of Science A national information policy for Australia: Discussion paper Dept of Science Canberra 1985. Scientific and technological information; proceedings of a workshop, Canberra, 20 March 1986 Dept of Science Canberra 1986.
31
E Swan ‘Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy’ in G. Peguero (ed) Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy; proceedings of a national seminar conducted at Footscray Institute of Technology, 19 November 1982 Footscray Institute of Technology Library Footscray 1983 pp139-148.
32
B Yates ‘The possible role of the National Library of Australia in the development of clearing houses and associated data bases’ in G. Peguero 1983 op cit pp21-33.
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policy and the lack of coordination between the lead institutions that established and provided the services. Regardless of the misgivings about coordination, the ad hoc development resulted in extensive services based upon international databases, complemented by the production of local databases. The Australian Database Development Association was formed and began to produce guides to the range of databases33, and provide guidance and encouragement for potential developers. A couple of decades later, information policy is much more the province of ICT, the media, and commerce. Little attention is now being paid to content and database development. It may seem that ongoing production and coverage is ample, but there are indicators that more needs to be done with respect to scanning and description of Australian content.
STI services The current online versions of the databases being considered here was preceded in several cases by current awareness services using batched search strategies in order to produce regular listings for researchers by Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI). CSIRO pioneered this by developing its own software to search its own compilations, complementing the batch searching it was carrying out on overseas databases. The Department of Supply’s ADSATIS (which subsequently became DISTIS34) service was another early example of SDI. In this case indexing metadata for research reports was combined with library accession data to provide SDI for departmental scientists. RMIT Publishing’s Informit35 service now provides an online platform for most of the Australian STI services. To a varying extent, the records are also replicated in international databases. Among the databases on Informit are several that have a history of continuous development since the 1970s and 1980s. These are the 33
Quinn S (ed) Directory of Australian and New Zealand databases 3rd edn Australian Database Development Association Hawthorn 1988.
34
The Defence Information Services Technical Information System used to index Australian Defence Index, Current Defence Readings, and Defence Reports.
35
Informit - Online Australasian information http://www.informit.com.au/index.asp [2 Feb 2006]. RMIT Publishing as Informit started producing CDROM databases in 1990 under the name Informit, and now publishes scores of Australian databases across many disciplines. It started the online service in 1998, and since 2000 this has included a number of databases that include full text.
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Australian Medical Index (AMI) produced by NLA; Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Information (ANSTI) produced by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO); Australian Natural Resources Index (ANR-I) produced by Infoscan for several government resource agencies; Australian Transport Index (ATRI) produced by ARRB Group; and the Australian Engineering Database (ENGINE) produced by Engineers, Australia. The following analysis focuses on these 5 Informit databases, along with what is now the Australian component of the international Georef database AusGeoref produced by Geoscience Australia. This database was formerly AESIS and its early development has been previously reviewed36. The characteristics and development of the services are described under the following subheadings: •
Overview of characteristics.
•
Production in order to provide some comparison of relative throughput.
•
Database platforms in order to review the different ways in which the databases have been made available.
•
Coverage in order to examine the selection of material for the databases.
•
Record format in order to compare information organisation.
•
Search aids for a brief overview of user assistance beyond online help. In addition to the databases listed above, other specialist databases in the STI
area are produced. For example, since 1982 with the assistance of CSIRO, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has produced REEF. However analysis is confined to the 6 databases listed in Table 1.
Overview of characteristics Table 1 summarises the databases by broad subject area, provides a brief digest of historical information, and comparison of characteristics.
36
M Middleton ‘Discipline formation in information management: Case study of scientific and technological information services’ Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology vol 2 2005 pp543-558. http://2005papers.iisit.org/I45f78Midd.pdf; or http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00001433/
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Table 1: Australian STI databases Earth sciences Present name Commenced Producer
Georef (Aust component) As AESIS 1976 AMF 1976-2001 Geoscience Australia 2003 Subject matter Earth sciences Coverage (1907-)1975 – 2001 Annual size ~4,000 Overseas About Australia 1979 material Types of BCDJMRRTS documents Vendors AUSINET CLIRS INFORMIT AMF International No ties Vocabulary Australian geoscience, minerals control and petroleum thesaurus Current awareness Other outputs Full text
AESIS quarterly AESIS special lists AESIS cumulation - fiche Retrospective list series No
Key for types of documents A Audio recordings B Books B Book reviews C Conference papers D Digital data & software
G J L M N
Engineering
Health & medicine 1968 ~2,000 About Australia; by Australians
BCGJNRT
BCJPRV
AUSINET 1983-1987 AUSTRALIS 1987 OZLINE Informit No
Aust Medline network OZLINE Informit
SHE: subject headings for engineering - 1993 Ei 1993 No
Current awareness
CAB thesaurus AGRIS categorization AGDEX adapted Aqualine thesaurus (Streamline) Streamline update
Medline complementary some overlap 2001 MeSH
Tailored searches Bibliographies
No
Meditext link 1996O P R R S
Ongoing research Pamphlets/posters Reports: technical, grey Reports – open-file Standards/specifications
Table 1 (Continued): Australian STI databases Natural resources Nuclear
Vocabulary control
AMI(includes HEAPS) 1983 NLA
No
Government papers Journal articles Legislation Maps News items
Present name AANRO Commenced ABOA 1975 (FROM AGRIS), Streamline 1982 Creators CSIRO (ABOA) Dept Resources, Energy (Streamline) Infoscan for AANRO Subject Agriculture, water resources matter Coverage 1941 from Annual size ~5,000-6000 Overseas About Australia material Types of BCDJMOPRTV documents Vendors AUSINET 1983 AUSTRALIS Streamline (WATR) Informit Streamline 1992 – ABOA 1996 Infoscan 1999 International ABOA subset for Australian ties component of AGRIS
Health sciences
Engine 1982 Institution of Engineers, Australia Engineering 1980 ~1300 No
T V W
Theses Visual media Websites
Transport
ANSTI 1972
ATRI 1977
AAEC, ANSTO
ARRB group. Formerly ARRB until 1995, then ARRB Transport Research ltd.
Nuclear science & engineering
Road research
1970
1975
~800-1000 No
~1600 Yes (from?)
BCDGJMRTS
BCDJORST
ANSTO Informit
AUSINET 1978-1982 AUSTRALIS (INROADS) OZLINE Informit
Australian component of INIS
30% of ARI goes IRRD
INIS thesaurus
IRRD thesaurus ATRI thesaurus
Tailored searches
Australian Road Index Australian Road Research ARRB Publications Index Thesaurus for ATRI
Other outputs Annual bibliographies .. ABOA No Water research in Australia (from Streamline) Full text Some links to web material No
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Some information about the structure and search facilities of each of these databases is available within the database assistance information on Informit, and Drynan has recently reviewed several of them37.
Production As shown in the table above, four of the databases have had the one producer since their inception, although in ATRI’s case the name of the producer has changed several times. AusGeoref has been produced since 2003 by Geosciences Australia after a two year hiatus following the demise of the Australian Mineral Foundation which had maintained AESIS for 25 years since 1976. Australian Agriculture and Natural Resources Online (AANRO) was formerly produced as the separate databases ABOA (by CSIRO), and STREAMLINE (by the Department of Resources and Energy), but since 1996 has been consolidated as one database produced by the Infoscan company. The databases have begun in different years, and in some cases have made efforts to include material from prior to their commencement date. However, it is instructive to compare the database input over the last few years. Table 2 is derived from PY (publication year) indexes for each database on Informit. It may be seen that: •
There is significant lag time at getting data into services – although all data were collected in early 2006, in many cases a great deal more 2005 material would be expected by the date of analysis.
•
There is an apparent tapering off in 3 of the 5 databases – this appears to be related to the lack of resources needed to get material into the databases rather than less publication in Australia, or more publication overseas.
37
E Drynan ‘A review of Australian online indexes’ Online Currents vol 20 no 10 2005 pp17-22.
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Table 2: Record counts by publication year38 (Informit 27.02.06) Year ENGINE AMI ANR-I Other; prior 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total
18860 486 3256 2075 1206 1777 545 998 1630 1433 1057 712 762 526 137 35460
44364 3868 4196 5049 5156 4585 5441 5004 4404 4104 4943 6288 5454 5623 4689 20 113,188
89866 6105 5952 5904 4855 4905 5636 5723 5512 4826 3694 1826 3001 2302 472 150579
ANSTI
ATRI
15939 989 868 1398 1341 984 467 536 943 1995 1160 1698 1790 448 1 30,557
79659 8029 7104 6552 5373 5188 4682 4916 4145 5253 4465 4188 4110 4321 2182 36 150,203
Database platforms Informit which began publishing databases on CDROM in 1990 and commissioned its online service in 1998 is now a vendor of each of the databases except AusGeoref, which may be searched on a subscription basis through the American Geological Institute as an independent subset of Georef39. The Australian content has grown to in access of 65,000 records. AANRO appears on Informit as ANR-I in current and archival versions, but it is also available as a knowledge base with links to other material via its own portal. ANSTI is alternatively available consolidated within the entire INIS database. Prior to Informit, a succession of platforms provided access to the databases. These included:
•
AUSINET that had been established as a cooperative enterprise in which a number of databases were pooled for shared access. It was initiated in 1976 following the success of the project to enable searching of the ERIC
38
ANR-I figures are for combined current and archive databases.
39
American Geological Institute AusGeoRef 2003 http://www.agiweb.org/georef/ausgeoref/index.html [14 Dec 2005]
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database, and the desire of Monash University for further development of online facilities. Following discussions, the NLA, Monash University and 8 other institutions, mainly universities but including ARRB, became the founding members. AUSINET functioned with IBM STAIRS software which facilitated databases structured with paragraphs (text search facilities such as Boolean and proximity), and formatted fields (coded data permitting relational operations typically used to refine a search). Sorting of search results and saving of search statements for re-use was possible. AUSINET used the computing facilities at what was then ACI Computer Services (later Ferntree) at Clayton in Victoria, with initial participants using leased line services at a cost of $3000 per month. There was stress on the development of uniquely Australian material. •
CSIRO’s AUSTRALIS was initiated in 1987 to enable consumer access to scientific databases reticulated through CSIRO’s telecommunications network CSIRONET, and via the telephone service. Databases were moved from it when Informit went online in 1998. Retrieval software was also IBM STAIRS.
•
The NLA’s OZLINE which ran from 1987 to 1998 with both a STAIRS, and alternative SOFI public user interface.
•
For a time AESIS was also available on the Computerised Legal Information retrieval (CLIRS) platform operated by Computer Power, using Status software. It formed an element of the Australian Resources Industry Database concept.
Coverage and source documents Summary of subject content of each of the databases is given within their respective Informit help facilities40, and an indication of the types of documents that are scanned is provided within Table 1 above. For AMI, a selection policy has been articulated for items in those documents that are considered. From this policy, the guidelines are:
40
Informit op cit
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•
Include all original items regardless of form or length or publication date; editorials and letters if they are substantial; reprints of earlier items are indexed if they have not already been reported AMI or the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS); and biographies and obituaries if there is a discussion or description of the person’s work or contribution to medicine.
•
Exclude items outside the stated subject categories; editorials that ‘editorialise’; book reviews; summaries of previously published material or about a conference; and reprints of items that have already been reported in AMI or APAIS41. One result of this policy is that, unlike with Medline, some conferences that
are published only as collections of abstracts are included, not for the individual abstracts, but for the conference as a whole.
… the other big departure … from Medline practice was that we decided to index a lot of conference proceedings, including conference abstracts where that was all that was available, … Medline has never done … abstracts where that was the only output
from
a
conference….
But
we
did,
though
not
comprehensively, because there are just so many of them… (S.
Henderson, personal communication, 24th June, 2004). Two of the services work with publicly available detailed guidance documents. ANSTI has a detailed subject guide that describes the scope of material that is input to the International Nuclear Information System. AANRO has the benefit of a detailed content policy document42. This is exemplary in that it provides guidelines for inclusion of material with reference to form (differentiated by item and collective level) and authority of information resources; audience, and 41
National Library of Australia Introduction http://www.nla.gov.au/ami/ [10th January 2005].
42
INIS subject categories and scope descriptions 8th rev IAEA Vienna 1997; S Quinn AANRO, Australian Agriculture and Natural Resources Online: Content policy, 2004 http://www.aanro.net/document/policy.pdf [18th January, 2006].
to
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Medical
Index
2002
189
audience priorities; geographic coverage inclusions and exclusions; appropriate websites for gateway access; as well as itemised content categories, also prioritised. The policy also itemises periodical coverage for Australia, and overseas periodicals that are scanned for Australian content. Table 3 shows an example of distribution by document type, in this case for the ATRI database on Informit.
Table 3: ATRI document types (from Informit, 20.3.06) Document Type
Records
Article (Journal) Audiovisual Book Chapter (Book) Conference Paper Journal Conference Proceedings Research Report Standard Statistics
39927 134 820 52 34499 1416 3497 15697 1497 514
Record format Most of the records in databases use a format like that shown for ENGINE in Figure 1, which contains typical bibliographical metadata based upon description of title, authorship, affiliation, publication dates, indexing (based upon a controlled vocabulary), additional indexing in the form of identifiers, and an abstract. Figure 1: ENGINE record (adapted from Informit 19.01.06) TI: Computer systems for asset and risk management AU: ROBINSON, R; ANDERSON, K AUF: Viner-Robinson-Jarman-Pty-Ltd SO: Sixth National Local Government Engineering Conference: effective management of assets and environment: Hobart 25-30 August 1991: preprints of papers. p106-110 DT: Conference Paper IM: Barton: IEAust, 1991 PY: 1991 PDS: 5p ill 7 refs SE: National Conference Publication (IEAust) no. 91/14 SMJ:MANAGEMENT computer applications; RISK STUDIES computer applications SMI: MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING project management; HEALTH HAZARDS management; ACCIDENT PREVENTION management; ACCIDENTS computer aided analysis; RISK STUDIES assessment; COMPUTERS, PERSONAL applications ID: OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ; GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM ; HAZARD REGISTER ; FAULT AND EVENT TREES ; ENERGY DAMAGE MODELS ; PRE EVENT RISK MANAGEMENT ; POST EVENT RISK MANAGEMENT ; FOURTH GENERATION INTERACTIVE PROGRAMMABLE SOFTWARE ; FACILITIES MANAGEMENT ; HAZARD MANAGEMENT ABI: Yes AB: This paper covers the use of expert systems for both risk assessment and asset management. In addition to technical considerations and user interface design matters, the paper addresses the practical aspects of implementing an effective, personal computer based risk, asset and space management system. It discusses the implementation of a number of such systems in different organisations and emphasise that whilst asset and space management systems are perhaps desirable in today's economic climate it is the need to satisfy risk related statutory and regulatory demands that seems to be the primary impetus. DN: 911500
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However, they also include specific data elements that may enhance access based upon the discipline, for example: ATRI records provide for: •
A geographic location element (GL). This element is not controlled in an authority file, so for example the Asia-Pacific region appears as Asia Pacific, Asia-Pacific, and Asia-Pacific region.
•
Bibliographic level (BL), which indicates principally whether entire documents, parts of documents, or ongoing series, are being described.
•
Records source (RSO) used to indicate the organisation (in coded form) that has contributed the metadata.
•
An indicator for URIs (URII) to show if a link is being provided to websites or documents. If the indicator is Yes, here is not necessarily a direct link to a document – it may be to a website from which documents are available.
•
The Library Location (LL) field lists the participating libraries that hold the serial under their National Union Catalogue (NUC) codes, and the Holdings (HS) field indicates the extent to which physical copies of a periodical are held. AANRO records provide for:
•
The Name of Sponsor (NOS) field, which may also contain information about contract, grant, and/or project numbers when the described item is the result of a funded project. It is searchable by individual keywords.
•
The geographic location (GL) field, which is used to produce both keyword and phrase indexes for Australian place names, agro-ecological regions and drainage divisions.
•
The subject headings (SU) field, which is based upon the CAB Thesaurus and classification codes known as CABICODES. It is searchable via either keyword or phrase indexes.
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•
The author (AU) field includes author affiliations, and these are also searchable, although keyword searching using Boolean uniterms is advisable because the affiliations are not based upon an authority file. AMI records provide for:
•
The abstracts (AB) that utilise those existing in the original documents, or are created by indexers if not provided by authors or editors. Codes used are for institutions rather than individuals.
•
Transliterated titles (TT).
•
The full text indicator (FTI) and associated link (FT) via URI to the Meditext file of full text material available through Informit.
•
The author address (AD) which was included in AMI before it became available in the Medline files.
•
Publication type (PT) in which a limited set of terms (such as biography, cases, reviews) is used to provide information about form of content.
ENGINE records provide for: •
Author affiliation fields (AUF) that may be searched by keyword or phrase if trying to identify particular institutions.
•
Name of sponsor (NOF) that includes contract, grant, or sponsoring agency names and numbers related to funded projects; keyword but not phrasesearchable.
•
Subject headings that are aggregated (SUA) but are also differentiated as major (SMJ) and minor (SMI) which provides for search refinement; they are based upon thesaurus terms and may have subheading appended as shown in Fig. 1.
•
The identifier (ID) field that contains additional terms that are important but not in the controlled vocabulary. ANSTI records provide for:
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•
The NT field includes reference to a URL for full text of the article when it is freely available.
•
The CA field for corporate authors is based upon an authority file of corporate author names and corresponding codes, so that there is standardisation of affiliations in the database
•
The C1 and SCC fields contain codes from an authority list that represent the broad subject categories of the document..
•
The descriptors used for indexing are drawn from the INIS thesaurus, and have the label SU. The thesaurus is used to assign additional SUP terms that are hierarchically broader in an automatic process known as upposting.
Although AusGeoref records have been able to retain many of the former AESIS record data elements, some specialist elements such as the basin field (BS) for geological basins and the map reference fields (M100, M250) are now subsumed within index terms and therefore are not independently searchable. Informit makes efforts to standardise data elements, however there remain significant differences between databases that have arisen from a combination of legacy systems, requirements for interfacing with other databases, and special inclusions. For example a comparison of data elements for ATRI and ANSTI is shown in Table 4.
Search aids The online versions of the databases are each accompanied by help facilities that provide descriptions of searchable and displayable fields, along with suggestions for use of research protocols. Each of the databases makes use of at least one controlled vocabulary for describing subject content. These vocabularies which in some cases have varied over time are listed in Table 1 above. The thesaurus used for indexing references to the AESIS prior to it becoming AusGeoref was locally produced by the Australian Mineral Foundation (AMF) and went through several editions43. 43
Firstly as the Australian thesaurus of earth sciences and related terms, before becoming the Australian geoscience, minerals and petroleum thesaurus. This hard copy and digital thesaurus was a product of the AMF created independently of the AESIS process but readily usable for indexing the database.
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Table 4: Informit elements for ATRI and ANSTI (28.02.06) Label AB ABI ABL AC BL C1 CA CA CN CPF DN DT DT GL HS IB ID IRF IS JT LA LL NT PA PD PG PP PU PY RPN RSO SE SO SCC SU SS SUC SUP TI URI URII VRF
Field Name Abstract Abstract Indicator Abstract Language Australian Coverage Bibliographic Level Subject (Primary Category Code) Corporate Author Corporate Author Name Of Conference Publication Frequency Document Number Document Type Document Type Geographic Location Holdings Statement ISBN Identifier Issue ISSN Journal Title Language Library Location Notes Personal Author Date Of Publication Pagination Place Of Publication Name Of Publisher Publication Year Report/Patent Number Record Source Series Source Subject (Category Code) Subject Search Subjects Subject (Category) Subject (Proposed) Title Uniform Resource Identifier Uri Indicator Volume
Database Both Both ATRI ATRI ATRI ANSTI Both ANSTI ATRI ATRI ATRI ATRI ANSTI ATRI ATRI Both ATRI Both Both Both Both ATRI Both Both Both Both ATRI ATRI Both ANSTI Both Both Both ANSTI Both ANSTI ANSTI ANSTI Both ATRI ATRI Both
Maintenance of services Since the 1970s a variety of approaches has been adopted for building databases that support STI services. CSIRO was initially prominent in this respect. The organisation had been creating bibliographies before the advent of computing. Being at the forefront of early computing science development, and of publishing scientific journals, it also moved into computer-supported publication and database creation and development of information retrieval software. This included servicing online provision of both reference and source databases either of its own creation (such as ASI, ABOA), or produced by others in specialised areas such as REEF.
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However, even though CSIRO provided the AUSTRALIS platform for a decade in the 1980s and 1990s, has continued to support content creation through periodicals, and has supported creation of abstracting and indexing services, it was not predisposed to commit fully to the national service that its legislation supported. … and life became progressively more difficult in terms of funding, staffing and all the rest of it. But, even at that time the CSIRO Board was taking fright at the implications providing a national, a truly national service rather than a service turned only towards CSIRO’s own scientists. (Peter Judge, personal communication, 23rd June 2004)
For a time, the NLA made an attempt to focus on STI through ANSTEL which took under its umbrella the national Medline service that had already been running in conjunction with the Department of Health. This service was complemented later by AMI and Meditext that provides full text associated with metadata. Neither the STISEC reports nor the ALBIS proposal were particularly concerned with private sector support for information service development. However, it was clear that an information industry was developing during the 1980s. For example Klingender canvassed ways in which public information should be delivered over a private network (AUSINET), while justifying the unpopular decision to drop certain low use databases from the network44. He was looking for more certainty to enable the private sector to generate the profits to make service viable, such as government commitment not to establish similar networks, fixed term exclusive contracts, and release from obligation to mount databases. At the same time he lamented the slow response received to requests for information on policy when his company needed to make large capital investments in computing, not knowing about the continuing support for the services for which they provided a platform.
44
T Klingender ‘National information policy: The role of the information industry’ in Papers presented at the National Information Policy Seminar, 7-8 December, 1981 LAA Canberra 1981 pp26-30.
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On the same subject, Judge reviewing public/private sector interaction45 noted that Australia needed inexpensive communication for access to local and overseas databases, appropriate local input to overseas databases, locally produced databases providing comprehensive deeper coverage required for Australian purposes, all allied with a strong library and document delivery system. He concluded that a publicprivate distinction might be blurred by cooperation by an envisaged “third sector” that might take the form of a public non-governmental establishment, of a government established company, or a combination (like AUSINET) to which both sectors would contribute. Coxon was pessimistic about development of online services46 gloomily indicating a trend away from library-based public services to more commercially oriented approaches. At the time of his writing CSIRONET had been established on a cost recovery basis with the AUSTRALIS service being developed, ACI had assumed proprietor status for AUSINET after it was found that “an independent user community hadn’t emerged to fulfil an management role”, and fees (though less than cost recovery) had been introduced for Medline after pressure to charge the moneymaking medical community. From an STI bibliographic database point of view at least, the private sector has not seen value in maintaining such services. The AMF was unable to sustain AESIS, and its successor is now supported by a government entity. ANSTI and AMI have always been public sector, though in the case of AMI there is contracted private sector indexing. AANRO is public sector financed but produced contractually privately. ENGINE is produced by a not-for-profit association that has restrained itself in recent times to coverage of its own publications. ARRB, although it obtains private sector funding for research work, has its information services infrastructure and thereby ATRI production, financed by state and federal government authorities.
45
P Judge ‘Public sector/private sector interaction in Australian information policy’ in B J Cheney (ed) VALA Second National Conference on Library Automation: Information management, 28th November - 1st December, 1983, University of Melbourne VALA, Melbourne 1984 Vol 1 pp56-82.
46
H Coxon ‘Online information services in Australia’ in B Katz & R Fraley (eds) International aspects of reference and information services Haworth Binghampton 1987 pp143-153.
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Drynan looking to the future47 concluded that production of local databases was unlikely to provide financial bonus, but that it could be fostered by constant marketing, verbal support and a “buy Australian” approach. CSIRO’s role in supporting secondary services has decreased over time as has its proportion of Australian scientific publication48, but it seems that it could have a significant role to play at least in terms of stimulation, coordination and enhancement of production of databases.
Discussion Although search engines and aggregated databases have the ability to bring together material reported and stored in different repositories, dispersion can be avoided by the value-adding process of bringing together material at one source with common metadata. This supports the identification of content produced nationally. It also better facilitates monitoring of productivity. Procedures whereby national input is provided to international services, and then combined with locally produced international publication ‘backfilled’ from the international services into consolidated local databases, provide the most effective approach for doing this, and would leave Australian researchers less subject to the vagaries of international services. There has been a plethora of metadata schemas developed in recent years to support various types of information services. Despite attempts to consolidate some of these in fairly compatible formats, the standardisation to the extent that it comes, is often developed by vendors in order to present a singular view of databases available on platforms. Such is the case with Informit, which produces a reasonably coherent view across databases including those of STI. Nevertheless Australian STI services could benefit from a shared approach to producing metadata, which would itself enable sharing of records between services. Citation metadata is notably absent from Australian STI databases. Although ISI has long monopolised the provision of such data, there is a growing number of alternatives in specialised areas, and in order to deal with Web citation49. The cost of 47
E Drynan 2005 op cit
48
L Butler 2001 op cit (p27)
49
Roth DL 2005 'The emergence of competitors to the Science Citation Index and the Web of Science' Current Science vol 89 no 9 pp1531-1536. http://www.iisc.ernet.in/currsci/nov102005/1531.pdf [19th March 2006]
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creating citation metadata can be reduced if the software used for producing bibliographies in papers can in turn be used to provide the citation metadata for consolidated databases – not just the reverse process as happens now when searchers download references into bibliographic referencing software. Utilisation of locally produced citation data would enable greater awareness of the impact of Australian material, particularly in Australian publication not encompassed by ISI’s indexes, which are the present source of indication of scientific research performance. The proportion of material not covered by ISI varies from discipline to discipline, but is particularly low in engineering and the computing sciences where journal publication takes a back seat to conference publication. Policy makers have found it beneficial to require through copyright legislation the capture of the nation’s book publication output and report it through a national bibliography, and this legislation is soon to be reviewed with reference to digital material. Capture of the nation’s scholarly output would seem to be similarly justifiable, and a mechanism for coverage of research literature would be welcome. There were concerted efforts to develop STI services in Australia during the 1960s and 70s. However, although these efforts led to greater awareness of the issues, national development lacked a strategy which stakeholders could follow to avoid gaps in service and duplication. This situation was exacerbated by funding constraints. However, a rapidly developing computing and communications environment coupled with the efforts of some visionaries working independently in different agencies, saw to it that the country was comparatively well-serviced using a combination of international and local services. This situation is threatened unless there is renewed commitment to resourcing, quality control and development for new user requirements.
Conclusion This paper has attempted to set the scene for Part II which looks at the STI services in the context of discipline formation. This Part I has provided an overview of the database characteristics along with the context in which they have been developed. The overview has been used to introduce some remarks relating to viability, continued production and further development of the databases
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Acknowledgements This document draws upon a number of case studies to which many people contributed through formal interview, or responses to queries. Particular thanks are due to Bev Allen (Geoscience Australia), Lynne Beaumont (ARRB Group), Rob Birtles (CSIRO), Warwick Cathro (NLA), Barry Cheney (VPL), Brenda Gerrie (Infoscan), Lea Giles-Peters (SLQ). Sandra Gorringe (ANSTO), Hans Groenewegen, Sara Hearn (Informit), Sandra Henderson (NLA), Mary Huxlin (ANSTO), Peter Judge, Max Lay, Alison Martin (ARRB Group), Ian McCallum (Libraries Alive!), Russell McCaskie (CSIRO), Sherrey Quinn (Libraries Alive!), Rosa Serratore (ARRB Group), John Shortridge (VBM), Des Tellis,
Elena Vvedenskaia (EA), Rolfe
Westwood (CSIRO), Janette Wright (Informit). Thanks are also due to Christine Bruce and Guy Gable of QUT for comments on work in progress, and to anonymous referees for constructive criticism on structure and content.
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Chapter 6: Information management discipline formation in STI The two papers in this Chapter derive from the case studies of Australian STI services. They complement the two papers appearing in Chapter 5 in that the first one looks at a single STI service and the second at the six services that were subject to case studies. The orientation of each of the studies is to consider the services with respect to information management discipline formation.
Contribution to research Together these papers provide detailed analysis of STI services and conclude that they are effective exemplars of information management discipline formation. In each case, they make use of the information management framework detailed in the book (excerpted in Chapter 3). They therefore comprise an examination of the cases with respect to administrative, analytical and operational aspects, and find that these are appropriate domains within which to consider information management practice. This domain-based approach is contrasted with an earlier attempt to characterise information management in levels proposed by Rowley (1998). This leads to some suggestions for adaptation of the Rowley model to embody a domain-based approach. The work also adds to the case study literature of information management. Although some cases have previously been analysed explicitly at the strategic level (Orna, 1999) most case studies in the area have not utilised the framework of an information management disciplinary model. This work is novel in that respect and points the way to using such a model for further case studies which are needed for the discipline.
6.1.
Journal article: single case study IM and STI services
A case study that analysed discipline formation in a specific Australian STI service, the Australian Earth Sciences Information Service, was accepted for presentation at:
InSITE (Informing Science + Information Technology Education) Joint Conference, Flagstaff, AZ, USA, 16-19 June, 2005.
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This paper was then revised and published as:
Middleton, M. (2005) Discipline formation in information management: case study of scientific and technological information services. Journal of Issues in
Informing Science and Information Technology 2: 543-558.
Abstract Discipline formation in information management is investigated through a case study of the origination and development of information services for scientific and technical information in Australia. Particular reference is made to a case of AESIS, a national geoscience, minerals and petroleum reference database coordinated by the Australian Mineral Foundation. This study provided a model for consideration of similar services and their contribution to the discipline. The perspective adopted is to consider information management at operational, analytical and strategic levels. Political and financial influences are considered along with analysis of scope, performance and quality control. Factors that influenced the creation, transitions, and abeyance of the service are examined, and some conclusions are drawn about an information management discipline being exemplified by such services.
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Introduction Discipline formation is a study of interest to academics who seek to define the boundaries of their fields of endeavor. This is so that effective contextualization can take place for study of a field by means of models for representing shared concepts; coherent expression being given to research programs; commonly accepted methods of investigation; and employing principles and values about which there is concurrence within a professional community. Analysis of discipline formation in information studies has taken various forms. These range from investigation of the overlapping concerns of professional associations though to compilations of seminal papers which provide underpinning principles. However, most examination is of conceptual boundaries. Articulation of what comprises the discipline varies considerably according to the perspective, training and context of who is expressing it. So there are disparities between information science, information systems, information management, knowledge management, library science and the like. These are explored briefly in the following section as a preamble to a historical study of the initiation of an application of information management in Australia. This study is being undertaken both as an investigation of discipline formation per medium of utilization of principles in a nascent profession, and to provide a historical record of the development of a particular type of information service – that which deals with scientific and technical information (STI). This paper reports on one case as a model for several other cases on genesis and development of Australian STI services. These studies in turn form part of a wider study of discipline formation in information management. A research question is therefore: does the provision of STI services provide an effective exemplar for the discipline of information management? The study is undertaken using a protocol that considers the services as information management applications. These applications are analyzed in terms of overlapping administrative, analytical and operational domains. This domain approach was expressed by Diener (1992), and used to organize a book illustrating principles and practice of information management (Middleton, 2002). The discipline as expressed in the book forms the basis of the case study protocol.
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The development of STI services in Australia was stimulated during the 1960s by several factors. These included improved mechanisms for information dissemination, and developments in information policy. However, in some respects progress was achieved in spite of policy frameworks and the lack of coordination between the lead institutions that established and provided the services. Most STI services developed in Australia were initiated in the 1970s accompanied by concerns about the proportion of national material that was not appearing in international databases, a growing desire to address public policy concerns about provision of information, and establishment through information technology of the technical capacity to provide such services. A review of these influences has been presented by Middleton (2004). This study is confined to an analysis of one service, the Australian Earth Sciences Information Service (AESIS), but makes some reference to a number of other services being developed at the time. The initial investigation is based upon operational experience with several services along with a literature and database review, and interviews. It therefore provides a descriptive history of one such service, along with commentary on the factors contributing to its establishment, and development in the light of other STI services.
Disciplinary Study of Information Management There have been many years of debate on what comprises the defining knowledge of the field of information science. Several works have provided overviews and debate about disciplinary boundaries. Examples are the early compilation by Saracevic (1970) and more recent accounts by Norton (2000), and Griffiths (2000). It is to be expected that this debate would encompass the application of information science in areas such as information systems and information management, which themselves are spoken of as disciplines. However there seem to be professional, research and conceptual barriers that inhibit such an inclusive approach across the fields. Contributing to these restraints are a lack of dialogue between information science and information systems researchers, and a lack of conceptual reinforcement
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of information management applications by theoretical constructs and principles of information science. In the case of lack of dialogue, this has been characterized as an apparent disjunction between the research of information science and information systems For example, Ellis, Allen, and Wilson (1999) considered the subfields of user studies and information retrieval, which are of interest to both fields. Using citation analysis, they found almost no overlap in relation to the disciplinary fields of the most highly cited authors. They attributed this to the nature of scientific disciplines, the socialization process of researchers in the different fields, and to institutional pressures. This disjunction seems to persist in more recent analysis of discipline formation being undertaken in the respective fields. For example Webber (2003) reviewing the status of information science as a discipline in the UK, makes little reference to studies in information systems or examination of an information systems/information science boundary. She examines definitions that relate to investigation of information properties and behavior, forces that govern its flow and use and techniques for improve representation, organization, storage, retrieval and dissemination. On the other side of the coin, the information systems academy also continues to question whether information systems is a discipline. For example Khazanchi and Munkvold (2000) look for disciplinary aspects, and they consider both information systems and information science. However they differentiate them, seeing information science as a secondary reference discipline of information systems. Their purview of information systems has it being an investigation of effective use of information and the potential impact of software systems and enabling information technologies on the human, organizational, and social world. They maintain that although IT is the key enabling technology for both information science and information systems, the focus of information science is different in that it is on the structure and management of large information entities, with documentalists and librarians being key agents. Although they pay attention to information science, they do not consider such elements as definitions of information or exploration of tenets and principles of information science, and how these may inform work in information systems as an application. With information systems study the emphasis seems to be substantially on the systems and process; with information science the emphasis seems to be
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substantially on the information and its content. They have in common an emphasis on social context and use, but this has not brought unity of focus. Despite this, there seems to be agreement in both fields about their essential interdisciplinarity. The second point made earlier was about lack of conceptual reinforcement between the science of information and its application through management. It is only relatively recently that scholars have spoken in terms of formation of an information management discipline. It remains problematical to do so since there are many contributing disciplines, and it is difficult to identify a core that is accepted by all adherents. Nevertheless, there have been attempts to characterize information management by considering how information science principles are applied in practice. For example, writers such as Rowley (1998; 1999) have paid some attention to categorizing the practice of principles articulated within information science. A recent survey of the area (Wilson, 2003) says that if information management is to have a viable role in organizational performance, then the function (rather than the idea) must become accepted as a key part of organizational structures, and be accompanied by coherent educational curriculum and a research agenda. It seems that an agreed disciplinary paradigm is yet to be accepted. Further, discipline formation investigations seem to focus more on information science research without much reference to what is engaged in by practicing information professionals. Information
management
is
often
described
as
interdisciplinary
or
multidisciplinary. It has yet to settle upon carefully developed methodologies that have assured disciplinary integrity and success. However there are a significant number of information professionals who believe they are carrying out something called information management, as evidenced by the many professional associations that have been formed using variations on the name information management. Studies of what information professionals do have been many and varied since Bell’s “postindustrial society” motivated such investigation. For example, a seminal study that detailed the work of the information professions in the USA was that of Debons, King, Mansfield, and Shirey (1981). Their broad categories for information work included: managing information operations, programs, services, or databases;
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information systems analysis; analyzing data and information on behalf of others; preparing data and information for use by others; searching for data and information on behalf of others; and information systems design. Abbott (1988) has conducted sociological analysis of the division of expert labor, and how the professions work. He concentrates on the way that professional tasks are delineated, and stratified. His work includes case studies of three professional areas, one of which is the information professions. He sees these as qualitative (principally librarians and journalists), and quantitative (a “complex and contentious group” including accountants, statisticians, operations researchers, and the like). He envisaged these groups coalescing under one jurisdiction stimulated by the joint catalysts of computing technology and of information science. Many subsequent studies have commented upon the diffuseness of the employment sector for such work. Cronin, Stiffler and Day (1993) saw it in terms of the ‘heartland’ (traditional jobs in established institutions), the ‘hinterland’ (information work utilizing traditional skills, but outside the traditional institutions, or requiring adaptation), and the ‘horizon’ (software engineers, telecommunications managers, and the like). The periodicals of the professional information associations often examine the boundaries of the field, and what employment in it means. For example in Online, Corcoran, Dagar and Stratigos (2000) report excerpts from their Outsell Inc study and provide a wealth of data on roles. The most predominant are information research; selection,
evaluation and acquisition of external content sources; training and
educating end-users; developing and managing overall content solutions for users; managing desktop deployment of external content; performing value-added information analysis; and managing internally generated content. The research reported in this paper attempts to extend the examination of discipline formation by consideration of how information science principles have been applied in the context of managing STI services. In this respect therefore, information management is defined as application of information science. It is the application of policy, analysis, and principles to techniques for improving representation, organization, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.
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Research Method A descriptive case study methodology (Yin, 2003) is applied in which the unit of analysis is a system of action, in this situation, the establishment and maintenance of a service, applied over multiple cases. The protocol comprises: •
Project objectives that include: -
Provision of an overview of development of STI services in Australia;
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Extension of this overview through detailed investigation to take account of public policy influences and corporate imperatives;
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Testing the utility of a case study procedure derived from description of discipline formation.
•
Collection of information via a combination of approaches requiring examination of published and archival documentation, for which access has been provided, and the interviewing of key figures who were involved in the creation of the national services.
•
Case study questions structured according to the context of a recently written book on information management (Middleton, 2002). In each case the STI service is to be examined from three information management viewpoints described in detail in the publication, and briefly as: -
Operational aspects referring to the different tasks carried out during staged processes of information handling, for example the creation; distribution; organization (including provision of metadata for information medium and content); retrieval; navigation processes for interaction; presentation; and if necessary disposal or retirement of information;
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Analytical aspects referring to user needs and systems analysis; information resources analysis including audits and assessing information worth; and evaluation procedures;
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Administrative aspects referring to policy and planning aspects and strategic approaches in general.
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An example of how analytical and operational factors have been investigated to provide some general guidance for database production is provided by Judge (in Judge & Gerrie, 1986, p.102). This is derived from a survey of about 40 database producers in Australia of which about half responded. Some examples of their modal (most frequent) answers are shown in Table 1. The analytical approach as defined for the protocol may be applied to information users as well as to the information sources that they use. For example, this has been carried out in relation to Australian STI services in general by Maguire, Weir & Wood (1987). They interviewed 117 people including research scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), academic scientists from universities, and technical managers drawn from different industry categories. They determined that unsatisfied information needs were found to be greater within the technical managers group, particular with respect to business intelligence. All groups expressed need for greater and more wide ranging database access.
Design and establishment: - A working party or committee, typically of 5 people undertaken over a 12 month period and occupying 6 person months; - In-house software requiring 6 person months to design and 6 person-months to develop; - A thesaurus established over 18 person months. Typical characteristics: - Monthly growth rate 250 records; - Bibliographic data with index terms and abstracts. Operations - Selecting material 0.3 person months/month; - Indexing 0.5 person months/month; - Data entry 0.5 person months/month; - Validation and editing 0.2 person months/month; - Training staff 0.05 person months/month; - Training users 0.05 person months/month. Table 1: Database information management (adapted from Judge & Gerrie, 1986)
Examples of user needs identification of STI in Australia described from the perspective of individual professionals rather than as research studies have been
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undertaken in a number of forums. For example both Lay and Thomas (Lane, 1984) provide an engineering viewpoint.
STI Policy This brief overview of relevant public policy initiatives is given because of their influence on the strategic aspects of information management within the administrative domain of the case study following. Drives to establish national information policy in Australia have begun and faltered several times. For a time in the 1970s, STI services were a main focus of information policy. A major attempt to identify requirements and articulate direction was undertaken through the Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee. STISEC had been established by the federal government and appointed by the National Library of Australia (NLA) to report on STI services. It recommended both the development of a national information policy, and a national central STI authority to act as focus for activities and promote their orderly development (Australia. Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee, 1973-75). A survey to inform the Committee was conducted based upon random sampling of scientists from a wide range of professional groups. About 2000 responses were received, and findings showed that significant numbers lacked ready access to primary literature, and very few were receiving formal current awareness services. CSIRO, although forming to some extent a distributed national science library, was reluctant to take on a greater resource provision role without dramatic provision of additional resources. Following the STISEC report however, it was active in collaboration with other agencies in the development of databases. One of these agencies was the NLA which had created the Australian National Scientific and Technological Library (ANSTEL) as one of three ‘national libraries’ (the others being for social sciences and the humanities), to function within NLA. ANSTEL embodied such schemes as an Australian industry network which was initiated, among other things, in order to produce current awareness bulletins in STI, and an industry reports database (National Library of Australia, 1977). Unfortunately the NLA was unable to communicate the objectives of services such as this in a way
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that engaged the wider information services community within which it was seen to operate. Moreover, it could not obtain enough resources for its ‘libraries within a library’ to pursue its objectives, or to keep them viable. All the same, NLA was able to point to developments under the umbrella of ANSTEL that had in fact already been embarked upon. For example, there were from 1970 the MEDLARS and subsequent MEDLINE services in association with the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the Australian Department of Health. There was also the Canadian CAN/SDI software to provide current awareness services from BIOSIS and ERIC databases. Nevertheless there remained disquiet about what was perceived to be the lack of authority (Swan in Peguero, 1983, p.147). However, the then ANSTEL director suggested that if a national database policy were needed then it would be necessary to demonstrate the failings of present services, and suggest alternative mechanisms. He thought this was unnecessary as ad hoc development had resulted in worthwhile achievements (Yates in Peguero, 1983, p. 30). Outside CSIRO and NLA, little was done to foster coordinated STI services development. Despite this, ad hoc development resulted in extensive services based upon international databases, complemented by the production of local databases. For the purposes of this paper, analysis is confined to one service, AESIS. A summary of its characteristics compared with two of the other services being examined is shown in Table 2.
Commenced Creators Subject matter Coverage Annual size Overseas material Types of documents Vendors International ties Vocabulary control Current awareness Other outputs Full text
AESIS
AMI (includes HEAPS)
1976 Australian Mineral Foundation Earth sciences (1907-)1975 – 2001 ~4,000 About Australia 1979 -
1983 NLA Health & medicine 1968 ~2,000 About Australia; by Australians
1982 Inst. of Engineers, Australia Engineering 1980 No ~1300
ENGINE
BCDJMRrTS
BCJPRV
BCGJNRT
Ausinet; CLIRS Informit, AMF No
Aust Medline network Informit Some Medline overlap 2001-
Australis Informit No
AGMP thesaurus
MeSH
AESIS quarterly AESIS special lists AESIS cumulation - fiche Retrospective list series No
Tailored searches
SHE: subject Headings for Engineering – 1993; Ei 1993No
Bibliographies
No
Meditext link 1996-
No
Table 2: Australian STI databases
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A B b C D G
Audio recordings Books Book reviews Conference papers Digital data & software Government papers
Key for types of documents J Journal articles R L Legislation r M Maps S N News items T O Ongoing research V P Pamphlets/posters W
Reports: technical, grey Reports – open-file Standards/specifications Theses Visual media Websites
Data of this type were compiled for a period during the 1980s by the Australian Database Development Association (Quinn, 1988).
Case Study – AESIS Provision of AESIS Service Instigation The genesis and early development of AESIS has been described in a number of papers, for example by Parkin & Tellis, (1977) and Tellis (1979). These papers draw attention to the hitherto fragmented bibliographic control over Australian geoscience information and the difficulty in locating it. They make mention of the different bodies that at the time generated significant amounts of information, among them the State Geological Surveys, and Mines Departments; the national Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (BMR); the mineral research areas of CSIRO; and a number of mining and exploration companies. Many of these enterprises had repositories of their own material, but there was little collaborative effort to share it, and no clearinghouse facility existed. A compendium of the range of internal databases including bibliographic and numeric, along with collections being constructed up to this period is documented in a geoscience seminar conducted in 1981 (Shelley; Jones in Australian Mineral Foundation, 1981). In 1970, the Australian Mineral Foundation (AMF) had been established, among other things to launch a resource centre for the mining and petroleum industries, and began to produce print-based current awareness services. It also conducted a national meeting in 1975 at which existing in-house systems of different agencies were discussed, and at which it was accorded a mediating role for a national coordinated scheme.
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Database production AESIS, produced by AMF, was to report both published and unpublished material. The system was maintained in cooperation with CSIRO, State Departments of Mines and Geological Surveys, NLA, the Australian Geological Survey Organization (AGSO) (formerly the BMR, and at the time of writing known as Geoscience Australia), the Australian Geoscience Information Association, and many companies. The published material was collected by AMF which provided document delivery services in support of material identified in literature searches. The unpublished material was reported on standardized datasheets by collaborating institutions. Subject content was to be described using a standardized vocabulary. Data entry was carried out via AMF onto a platform that was provided by the CSIRONET computing network..
Database coverage Earth sciences were taken to include the disciplines of geology, geophysics, geochemistry, mining, mineral processing, geomorphology, oceanography, energy, metallurgy, petroleum and natural gas technology, and environmental protection. Commencing in 1976 AESIS covered published and unpublished documents generated in Australia on the earth sciences in these disciplines. From 1979, coverage was extended to include material dealing with continental Australia published by nonAustralian sources. There were also efforts to include material from prior to 1976, especially for open-file reports (limited distribution documents held in government departments, which could be viewed), and theses, and for material produced by government bodies such as the then BMR, and the State Geological surveys. Retrospective coverage for published material has also been undertaken through special projects for the Geological Society of Australia, Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and various Australian Royal Societies. Tabulation of records by year going back to 1907 along with distribution of
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material by broad categories up to 1980 is given by AMF (Australian Mineral Foundation, 1981) When production of the database went into abeyance in January 2001 it contained about 200,000 records. Material scanned for AESIS was taken from many sources including journals, monographs in series, books, conference papers and proceedings, technical reports, maps, theses, and unpublished and open-file reports. Document backup other than for theses and unpublished material is provided by AMF (Tellis in Lane, 1984). The service did not progress to the point of including digital full text.
Database searching The thesaurus used for indexing references to the database has been through several editions firstly as the Australian thesaurus of earth sciences and related terms, but most recently as the Australian geoscience, minerals and petroleum thesaurus. Copies of the Thesaurus have been made available from the AMF in either hardcopy or digital format. This thesaurus was a product of AMF created independently of the AESIS process, but readily usable for indexing the database. The record format, illustrated in Figure 1 is an example of a record as it is formatted for full display from the Informit service. Features of note in the record include:
•
The descriptor field (SU) in which are included terms from the Thesaurus.
•
The basin field (BS) which when appropriate, records geological basins – this part of the description was initially held with the descriptors, but as with tectonic units (TC), separate fields have now been created for these terms (existing records were altered to shift the terms into their correct fields).
•
The map reference fields (M100, M250) which record codes corresponding to 1:100,000 and 1:250,000 map sheet areas.
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•
The availability field (AV) that indicates access to unpublished material.
TI: Report on Gidgealpa area magnetic survey. TN: OEL00020; OEL00021 AU: Delhi-Australian-Petroleum-Ltd; Santos-Ltd; South-Australia-Department-of-Mines-and-Energy; Hall-JMcG SO: South Australia. Department of Primary Industries and Resources. Report Book. RN: 706 COLL: 3 fiche, 8 pages; 1 appx, 10 plans PY: 1964 AV: Available only from the Department CC: 1230; 1445 SU: Geophysics-; Natural-gas-fields; Geological-structures; Anticlines-; Mapping-; Geophysical-surveysSA; Ground-magnetic-surveys; Remote-areas; Deserts-; Productivity-; Surveying-; Navigation-; Linelocation-maps; Seismic-traverses; Base-line; Magnetic-survey-methods; Magnetic-survey-equipment; Proton-precession-magnetometers; Principles-; Field-instruments; Magnetic-field-intensity; Diurnalvariation; Error-correction; Calibration-; Calculators-; Discussion-; Magnetic-profiles; TMI-maps; Qualitative-analysis; Magnetic-anomalies; Confidence-limits; Operations-report; BS: Eromanga Basin; Cooper Basin; Warburton Basin TC: Gidgealpa Anticline MI: Gidgealpa 3; Gidgealpa 2; Gidgealpa gas field; Gidgealpa 1 LO: South Australia: Strzelecki Desert; Cooper Creek; MA: SG5414 6942 ANN: Ground magnetic survey carried out by SADM for Delhi Australian Petroleum Ltd at Gidgealpa from 18/3/64-16/4/64. Total magnetic field of the Earth was measured using the nuclear precession magnetometer, and the results presented in contour and profile form. Due to a lack of adequate diurnal control and accurate station positioning, accuracy of results does not come up to capability of the instrument. Recommended that more attention be paid to navigation and diurnal control in future surveys over sedimentary basins. SC: S M250: SG5414 M100: 6942 ORG: DPP; SAN; SDM DT: U UD: 18-12-2000 AN: 200012103
Figure 1: Example of AESIS record (from Informit)
Information Management Aspects This analysis is based upon the protocol outlined earlier under research methodology, and considers in turn, the administrative, analytical and operational aspects.
Administrative information management AESIS was coordinated by the AMF in cooperation with the many agencies, referred to previously, and with the principal computer support of CSIRO. Collectively the agencies contributed about 25% of operating costs. The costs were borne mainly
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by the petroleum industries through the Australian Geoscience Information Association and many companies (Tellis in Peguero, 1983). Tellis (1986) writing in general terms about management of databases thought that when goals, objectives and system inputs and outputs had been considered, then the viability of a database needed to take account of:
•
Target information: the growing area of information that is useful but not (otherwise) readily accessible.
•
Clientele: a relatively large population of users who would use the accessible target information.
•
Database: a storage and switching mechanism for linking information to clientele.
•
Resources: funding this as well as cooperation from various parties.
•
Control and coordination.
He exemplified this approach in the overall functional format of AESIS as shown in Figure 2. This provided the framework for development milestones as shown in Table 3. Of these, costs at the time were A$6,000 for the survey, A$55,000 for thesaurus development and production of first edition (including thesaurus software development by WRE and AMDEL), and A$82,000 systems development (by CSIRO CILES using costs estimated at equivalent bureau and software package costs at the time) AESIS quarterly was estimated at A$8,000 annually for the 500 subscriptions and annual microfiche cumulations at A$1,000 for the same number of subscriptions. Varying detail of different costings for 1980 is available (Tellis, 1981; 1986). These amount to A$129,000 for direct costs with management and support service costs (A$44,000 is direct processing costs, A$19,000 is for production cost of products, and A$66,000 management and support services costs of which about 48% is for purchase of material and about 39% for salaries of staff).
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Figure 2: AESIS overall functional format (from Lavo, 1981, p. 25)
Table 3: AESIS milestones (Tellis, 1979) 1. 1972: AMF Australia-wide information services survey conducted to ascertain industry needs along with degree of participation to be expected from government academic and industry sources. 2. 1973: ERISAT commenced as manually produced monthly current awareness bulletin that provided an experimental system for thesaurus development and AESIS to follow. 3. 1974: The development of the thesaurus an indexing vocabulary for the geosciences in Australia. 4. 1975: the first geosciences information seminar held at AMF that gave a mandate for the creation of the earth sciences bibliographic database. 5. 1976: Production of first working edition of Australian thesaurus of earth sciences and related terms; pilot study and development of AESIS with some sample products on CSIRONET. 6. 1978 Stabilization of AESIS products and production routines for AESIS quarterly, AESIS cumulation on microfiche, AESIS special lists, and retrospective search output forms 7. 1979 Computer typesetting and production of second thesaurus edition in hard copy 8. 1980 Transfer of ESRISAT from manual production to computer typesetting in same form as AESIS quarterly with new ERISAT six-monthly cumulation for international material; mounting of AESIS on Ausinet for interactive public use.
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An extended figure of A$158,000 per annum is derived by including a fifth of the total development cost (assuming amortization over a five year period). On this basis of this maximum figure, a unit cost of A$42.7 is derived for each of the 3700 records produced by the two services during the period. A unit cost figure of about A$20 corresponds with actual processing and is commensurate with that of figures reported by other services at the time These attempts to quantify processing costs, and willingness to share them publicly were a valuable lead for other database developers embarking upon similar ventures at the time. What such figures could not do however, was to value the accumulated information. This is particularly poignant in view of the subsequent demise of AMF for financial reasons. AMF ceased operations at the end of 2001 because of the drastic decline in the number of companies and professionals within the mining industry. It became uneconomic for it to continue to operate, however attempts have been made to support key operations such as AESIS via other avenues. In April 2002, Chief Government Geologists from federal and state authorities had been unable to agree on a funding model to support continued AESIS production. However Geoscience Australia subsequently has entered an arrangement with the American Geological Institute to produce indexed material in association with Australian state agencies. Inclusion of records in AGI’s Georef database began in November 2003. Therefore a path has been followed similar to other services that have provided input as part of an international approach.
Analytical information management For AESIS the principal analytical aspects to be considered are the determination of user needs, the identification of appropriate material for inclusion, and the evaluation of performance of the system. A 1972 survey (Dixon & Tellis, 1972) was the major analysis of anticipated user needs for the service. However although this survey sought information on individual user needs within organizations detailed in an appendix, the document confined itself
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to reporting institutional coverage and current information provision along with recommendations concerning an agency to handle an STI service. Subsequently, AMF strived to be comprehensive within the subject areas delineated. The difficulties presented in being so inclusive included fugitive material such as papers presented at regional seminars hosted by discipline areas outside the core. They endeavored to identify such material from accession lists, current awareness bulletins and publishers blurbs. An arrangement with NLA to make use of received deposit copies petered out. No systematic input of theses was achieved despite a suggestion for ‘data transmission sheets’ to be submitted by universities. Nevertheless 860 theses were included in the database by October 1983 (Tellis in Lane, 1984). There are now many thousands. There was also a project to include open-file company exploration reports and theses for the period 1965-75 sponsored by the Australian Mineral Industries Research Association and thirteen companies. Performance evaluation carried out included the use of an evaluative framework set up in a study by Pruett on the international Georef database (Tellis, 1986). This was used with reference to AESIS to deduce among other things: •
Subject coverage was wider than other geoscience databases.
•
Currency was markedly higher than other geoscience services.
•
Thesis coverage was not as comprehensive as desirable.
•
There was a low incidence of duplicate records.
•
Document type tags enabled isolation of proceedings, chapters, etc if required.
•
Over 40% of citations were to open-file and unpublished survey reports.
•
Indexing provided for distinction between processes (e.g. ‘’faulting’), and occurrences (e.g. ‘faults’); however the collaborative nature of indexing, may lead to inconsistencies in this respect, which may be addressed by training, or global corrections for the database.
•
Map sheet references provided for searching by grid references.
•
Formal training programs were still to be initiated.
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Tellis (in Judge & Gerrie, 1986) also examined performance in terms of cost effectiveness and benefit. He commented upon the difficulty of assessing effectiveness without recourse to data from comparable systems, though finding through discussion with colleagues that unit costs are comparable. He made particular reference to tradeoffs such as distributed collaborative indexing, and other cooperative procedures. By contrast, cost benefit (with orientation towards user impressions) was examined in more detail. For example, he cited earlier measures of the number of journals that a user would have to scan if a current awareness bulletin were unavailable, and applied them to the AESIS service which itself was found to exhibit a Bradford distribution whereby in this case 70% of the reported papers are covered by 37 periodicals. Beginning with estimates of the cost to a company of a professional’s time, and taking into account salaries and scanning times that would be necessary to look at the same literature if the service had not been available, he was able to tabulate significant benefits in dollar terms by subtracting processing costs from estimated scanning costs.
Operational information management Initially, the database was created on CSIRONET by dispatch of coding forms to CSIRO from AMF for paper tape data entry. Later data entry took place directly from AMF, and from 1982 this was managed through a host DEC PDP11/44 minicomputer for validation, then storage on a Cyber76 on CSIRONET in Canberra. The thesaurus was transferred to the PDP host (Tellis in Peguero, 1983). Software support was provided by the CILES System Development Group. The live database was updated monthly on CSIRONET. From 1980, quarterly updates were also produced for Ausinet where they were mounted after conversion to STAIRS with software developed by ACI Computer Services. Full document backup (or referral for unpublished documents) was provided by AMF. In 1987 AESIS was relocated from CSIRONET to CLIRS as part of its Australian Resources Industry Database concept.
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Other operational aspects concerned the continuing maintenance of the thesaurus terminology and production of new editions, as well as the production of other titles that were structured along the same lines as AESIS. For example, Earth Science and Related Information Selected Annotated Titles (ESRISAT) selectively covered earth sciences serial publications received by the AMF and South Australian Department of Mines and Energy libraries and State Library of South Australia (Tellis in Peguero, 1983). Seven indexes: subject, locality, author, map sheet, mine/deposit/well/name, stratigraphic and serial title, were created for the monthly service which also had semiannual cumulations. These were the same indexes as for AESIS, and the material included incorporated AESIS updates along with library acquisitions. Document delivery costs estimated at $5 per request excluding requester’s cost for normal (comparing with quoted national figures of $5.56 and lending of $3.72) although 90% are about $3.60 are close to the national figure and 10% are about 4-5 times that.
Conclusion There were concerted efforts to develop STI services in Australia during the 1960s and 70s within a public information policy framework. However, although these efforts led to greater awareness of the issues, national development lacked a strategy which stakeholders could follow to avoid gaps in service and duplication. This situation was exacerbated by funding constraints. However, a rapidly developing computing and communications environment coupled with the efforts of some visionaries working independently in different agencies, saw to it that the country was comparatively well-serviced using a combination of international and local services. One of the agencies in the vanguard was the AMF, whose AESIS service provides the focus for the case study. The initial success of AESIS can in no small part, be attributed to the acuity of its management, and it provided an prototype for similar Australian services. Despite the demise of its harboring organization, the quality of the database has seen it revived in a different context for the petroleum and exploration industry. However, its continuation will happen effectively only by application of the collaborative principles that contributed to is original success.
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This case study approach aspires to test whether a particular service is carried out according to the tenets of a domain-based information management approach. This requires attention to be paid to planning and strategy through administrative, analytical and operational aspects. The AMF was found to be conscious of the need for consideration of each of these domains, though the elements were not articulated in those terms by the enterprise itself at the time of development. The three domains have proved in be useful in this case for conceptualizing the application of information management. They represent an approach by Middleton (2002) that endeavors to illustrate how information management reconciles information science principles. Therefore if such understanding can be applied in similar cases, it should prove useful for the planning and development of services. This study is limited by focusing on a single case, by examining it at a time when it is no longer operational in the same way, and by limited recourse to historical records. However, subsequent case analysis of similar STI services is showing promise in confirming the appropriateness of the approach Whether the analysis can be extended to information services in general is problematical. However it seems to provide a useful understanding at least in this constrained domain, of those areas that need to be addressed to make such a service work well according to tenets of the field.
Acknowledgement My great appreciation is extended to Des Tellis for his input to and comments upon the AESIS material.
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Today for American Society for Information Science and Technology and Chemical Heritage Foundation. (Also available from http://www.chemheritage.org/events/event-asist2002.html) National Library of Australia. (1977). Towards an Australian industry information network. Canberra, ACT, Australia: NLA. Norton, M. J. (2000). Introductory concepts in information science. Medford, NJ, USA: Information Today for ASIS. Parkin, L. W., & Tellis, D. A. (1977). Australian Earth Sciences Information System. Proceedings of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy(262), 7-23. Peguero, G. (Ed.). (1983). Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy; proceedings of a national seminar conducted at Footscray Institute of Technology, 19 November 1982. Footscray, Australia: Footscray Institute of Technology Library. Quinn, S. (Ed.). (1988). Directory of Australian and New Zealand databases (3rd ed.). Hawthorn, VIC, Australia: Australian Database Development Association. Rowley, J. (1998). Towards a framework for information management. International Journal of Information Management, 18(5), 359-369. Rowley, J. (1999). In pursuit of the discipline of information management. New Review of Information and Library Research, 5, 65-77. Saracevic, T. (Ed.). (1970). Introduction to information science. NY: Bowker Tellis, D. A. (1979). The Australian Earth Sciences Information System (AESIS): a co-operative national venture. Australian Special Libraries News, 12(March), 37-43. Tellis, D. A. (1981). Australia-wide information services for the mineral and petroleum industries: cost aspects, Combined conference of the Library Association of Australia and New Zealand Library Association (pp. 254-270). Sydney, NSW, Australia: Library Association of Australia. Tellis, D. A. (1986). Earth sciences databases: observations on information associated with a globally sensitive resource, Information Online 86: proceedings of the First Australian Online Information Conference, Sydney, 20 - 22 January 1986 (pp. 118-129). Sydney, NSW, Australia: Library Association of Australia. Webber, S. (2003). Information science in 2003: a critique. Journal of Information Science, 29(4), 311329. Wilson, T. D. (2003). Information management. In J. Feather & R. P. Sturges (Eds.), International encyclopedia of information and library science (2nd ed., pp. 263-277). London: Routledge. Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: SAGE Publications.
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6.2.
Journal article: multiple case study of STI services discipline formation
This is the second of two papers dealing with Australian STI services, in this case examining the services through an information management lens. It has been accepted for publication as:
Middleton, M. (2006, in press) Scientific and technological information services in Australia. II. Discipline formation in information management. Australian
Academic and Research Libraries 37(3)
Abstract This second part of an analysis of scientific and technical information services (STI) in Australia considers their development in the context of discipline formation in information management. The case studies used are the STI services from Part I. A case study protocol is used to consider the extent to which the development of the services may be described in terms of information management domains. Specific reference is made to Australian Agriculture and Natural Resources Online (AANRO), the Australian Medical Index (AMI), Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Information (ANSTI), Australian Transport Index (ATRI), AusGeoref and its forerunner AESIS, and the Australian engineering database (ENGINE).
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Introduction This is the second part of a two part work that looks into scientific and technological information (STI) services. The first part1 focuses on their history and development in Australia. In this second part, the services are examined through the lens of an information management disciplinary framework. An objective is to discuss the extent to which information management may be regarded as a discipline, and then to consider how present understanding of information management has been informed through the development of STI services. Case studies of the administration of STI services in the areas of earth sciences, engineering, health, natural resources, transport, and nuclear science are used to support the analysis. A rationale for the choice of these cases is given in Part I. A major factor in the characterisation of a profession is the body of knowledge to which it subscribes. Although this may be relatively coherent in fields of scientific endeavour, in the social sciences the body of knowledge may be drawn from disparate subjects and the practitioners are less likely to come from the same educational background. This seems very much the case with information professionals. Their professional training, even when focused on information, may come from streams as diverse
as
journalism,
public
administration,
librarianship,
recordkeeping,
communication, information systems, or organisational research. Is there a body of knowledge that these groups may jointly make use of so that they can advance as a coherent profession? Consideration of what constitutes a discipline normally takes place by examination of the underlying principles and models of the body of knowledge. This has been done regularly for the information professions through deliberation upon what constitutes ‘information science’. Although this paper reviews disciplinary approaches to information science, its attention is more focused by way of contrast on information practice in order to suggest elements of a discipline through information management as derived from principles.
1
M Middleton ‘Scientific and technological information services in Australia I. History and development’ Australian Academic and Research Libraries vol 37 no 2 2006 pp111-135.
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Research method This paper has arisen from a detailed case study of several STI services using a case study protocol which is explained in Part I, and that is supported by interviews with key participants, use of different versions of databases produced, and reference to literature, archives, and supporting material created to support users of databases. The project’s case study questions were structured according to the context of a recently written book on information management2, because this book uses defined domains of information management to describe how information science principles are applied with practical examples. The three information management domains as detailed in the book are:
•
Operational, referring to the different tasks carried out during staged processes of information handling, for example the creation, distribution, organisation (including provision of metadata for information medium and content), retrieval, navigation processes for interaction, presentation, and where necessary, disposal or retirement of information.
•
Analytical referring to user needs and systems analysis, information resources analysis including audits and assessing information worth, and evaluation procedures.
•
Administrative in this context referring to policy and planning aspects and strategic approaches in general.
Outcomes are documented as characteristics of the STI services in Part I, and then interpreted in the context of discipline formation here in Part II as factors within the domains outlined above. Studies that investigate some of these factors have been carried out in Australia previously in similar contexts, for example:
2
M Middleton Information management: a consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy CSU Centre for Information Studies Wagga Wagga 2002.
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•
Some analytical and operational factors were investigated to provide general guidance for database production by Judge and Gerrie3, who surveyed about 40 database producers in Australia and itemised examples of design and operational requirements.
•
An approach at the analytical level and applied to information users as well as to the information sources that they use was carried out with respect to Australian STI services in general by Maguire, Weir & Wood4. They interviewed research scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), academic scientists from universities, and technical managers from industry in order to tabulate a range of formal and informal resources consulted, and to isolate unsatisfied information needs.
•
At the analytical level, examples of user needs identification described from the perspective of individual professionals rather than as research studies, have been reported in a number of Australian forums. For example, both Lay and Thomas provide an engineering viewpoint5.
This part of the study examines the characteristics of the STI services by interpreting the extent to which they correspond to the defined domains, and in this manner represent an evolving disciplinary framework.
Discipline formation There has been a limited amount of explicit consideration of information management discipline formation, so it is necessary to look beyond the field in order
3
P Judge & B Gerrie (eds) Small scale bibliographic databases Academic Press Sydney 1986.
4
C Maguire T Weir & L Wood Scientific and technological information: Its use and supply in Australia Department of Science Scientific Development Division Canberra 1987.
5
Described in separate contributions by Lay and Thomas in L Lane (ed) Engineering information and documentation in Australia: Problems and solutions; proceedings of a national seminar conducted by Footscray Institute of Technology, 25 November 1983 Footscray Institute of Technology Footscray 1984.
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to take into account methods that have been used for identifying discipline formation in other areas of knowledge and their application.
The process of discipline formation is sometimes characterised as providing new ways of looking at knowledge. For example the publication in the seventeenth century of Newton’s Principia provided mathematical principles for natural philosophy, and thereby introduced a formal language that was able to introduce disciplines such as physics and astronomy. Examination of how disciplines form must first decide what a discipline is. Becher and Trowler have reviewed different approaches to this6, noting such aspects as tradition, sets of values and beliefs, mode of enquiry, conceptual structure, and a network of communications. They make a distinction between two types of emphasis in investigative studies. These are either an epistemological one where the focus is concepts and fundamental aims, or a sociological one where there is a focus on organised social groupings. Nevertheless they recognise that most commentators pay attention to both aspects. Study of discipline formation is often pursued in general terms by philosophers or sociologists, or in relation to particular disciplines, normally by authorities within those disciplines who are trying to establish disciplinary limits. Their approach might best be described as historiographic analysis of documentation7. Abbott’s sociological approach has focused on the professions8. He acknowledges that the clarity with which the professional borders are defined may affect what he terms the jurisdiction of a profession, and therefore its vulnerability. His approach to defining professions is relevant to examining discipline boundaries, particularly since he has specifically considered the information professions.
6
T Becher and P R Trowler Academic tribes and territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines 2nd edn SRHE & Open University Press Buckingham UK 2001.
7
Their study involves relativist analytical approaches that seem to range from Kuhnian philosophy of science, to Foucaultian examinations of disciplinarity and the power structures involved in its construction, for example: P Baehr Founders, classics, canons: modern disputes over the origins and appraisal of sociology's heritage Transaction Publishers New Brunswick NJ 2002; and H Pai The portfolio and the diagram Cambridge MA 2002
8
A D Abbott The system of professions: an essay on the division of expert labor University of Chicago Press Chicago 1988.
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Information science as a discipline There have been many years of debate on what comprises the defining knowledge of the field of information science. Several works have provided overviews and debate about disciplinary boundaries. Examples are the early compilation by Saracevic, and more recent accounts by Norton, and by Griffiths9. In each case they emphasise the interdisciplinarity or ‘boundary spanning’ of research, but they do not explore to a great extent the application of information science in areas such as systems and management, although Griffiths does give some examples of practice. Elsewhere, information systems and information management are also spoken of as disciplines. However there seem to be professional, research and conceptual barriers that inhibit an inclusive approach to them as a discipline across the applications. The disjunction between information science and information systems researchers has been observed repeatedly. For example Martin10 noted that database searching for information management material showed little duplication of coverage in three different databases favoured by the data processing, management and information science fraternities. Later, Ellis, Allen, and Wilson11 used citation analysis of the subfields of user studies and information retrieval to illustrate the lack of dialogue between respective fields. Likewise, a recent review of information science as a discipline in the UK12 makes little reference to studies in information systems, or examination of an information systems/information science boundary. In information systems study, emphasis seems to be substantially on the systems and process; in information science the emphasis seems to be substantially on the information and its content. They have in common an emphasis on social context and 9
T Saracevic Introduction to information science. NY: Bowker NY 1970; M Norton Introductory concepts in information science. Medford, NJ, USA: Information Today Medford NJ 2000; J-M Griffiths ‘Back to the future: information science for the new millennium’ Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science vol 26 no 4 2000 pp24-27.
10
W J Martin 'Information management in the United Kingdom' in A Kent & C M Hall (eds) Encyclopedia of library and information science Vol. 51 suppl 14 Dekker, NY 1993 pp266276.
11
D Ellis D Allen & T Wilson ‘Information science and information systems: Conjunct subjects disjunct disciplines’ Journal of the American Society for Information Science vol 50 no 12 1999 pp1095-1107.
12
S Webber Information science in 2003: a critique Journal of Information Science vol 29 no 4 2003 pp.311-329.
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use, but this has not brought unity of focus. For example a joint disciplinary consideration of information systems and information science13 found a need to differentiate them, seeing information science as a secondary reference discipline of information systems. Debate in the information science area has an epistemological orientation, in that it is more concerned with knowledge that is pertinent to study of information, than it is with the way in which findings of this study of information are applied. If there is a discipline of information science then, it is perhaps a meta-discipline that draws upon what Griffiths terms ‘disciplines of information’ that include study as diverse as cybernetics, bibliometrics, semantics and systemics.
Information management as a discipline It seems that a commonly accepted disciplinary paradigm for information science remains some way off. A paradigm for information management is similarly inchoate. Although some scholars have spoken of an information management discipline, the relationship between what is pursued through research and what is applied by practicing information professionals remains tenuous. Wilson has stated that a coherent educational curriculum and a research agenda must be associated with information management if it is to have a viable role in organisational performance, with its functions being accepted as a key part of organisational structures14. There appears still to be a lack of conceptual reinforcement between the science of information and its application through management. However, there have been attempts by Rowley to characterise information management as a discipline by considering how information science principles are applied in practice15. Her work
13
14
15
D Khazanchi & B E Munkvold ‘Is information systems a science? An inquiry into the nature of the information systems discipline’ Database for Advances in Information Systems vol 31 no 3 2000 pp24-42. T D Wilson ‘Information management’ in J Feather & R P Sturges (eds) International encyclopedia of information and library science 2nd edn Routledge London 2003 pp. 263-277. J Rowley ‘Towards a framework for information management’ International Journal of Information Management vol 18 no 5 1998 pp359-369; J Rowley ‘In pursuit of the discipline of information management’ New Review of Information and Library Research no 5 1999 pp65-77.
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builds upon studies that analyse the work carried out by people who are information professionals16. If we are to differentiate information management as the practice of information science, then it is necessary to define a framework. As noted by Macevièiûtė and Wilson17 the concept depends on the interpretation of the words ‘information management’.
It is not only the concepts of "information" as such, but the multiple meanings of the phrase, emphasis of its elements, or the word order as well as the scientific perspective. The phrase is also used to mean something other than what the LIS field considers to be the management of information resources. For example, it is used as an abbreviation for: the management of IT, information systems management, management information systems, etc. The meaning of the phrase is even more clouded by the emergence of new, related terms, such as "knowledge management", which in many cases has an identical meaning to information management …
These writers have later produced a compilation18 in which authors of earlier original papers have been asked to revise those papers in order to address them to researchers who are following discipline development. From these revisions Macevièiûtė and Wilson noted such developments as the expansion of study of 16
17
18
A seminal study that identified broad categories of information work was A Debons D W King U Mansfield & D L Shirey The information professional: survey of an emerging field Dekker NY 1981; Abbott op cit characterised the information professions as qualitative (principally librarians and journalists), and quantitative (a “complex and contentious group” including accountants, statisticians, operations researchers, and the like), and foresaw these groups coalescing under one jurisdiction stimulated by the joint catalysts of computing technology and of information science; the periodicals of professional information associations often examine the boundaries of the field, and what employment in it means, for example M Corcovan L Dagar & A Stratigos ‘The changing roles of information professionals’ Online vol 24 no 2 2000 pp28-33 report excerpts from an Outsell Inc study on information management roles E Macevièiûtė & T D Wilson ‘The development of the information management research area’ Information Research vol 7 no 3 http://InformationR.net/ir/7-3/paper133.html [19th March 2006] E Macevièiûtė & T D Wilson (eds) Introducing information management: An information research reader Facet London 2005. (updates of papers appearing published with the same title at http://InformationR.net/).
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information networking, the proliferation of application areas, and the emergence of knowledge management (as a term rather than a new field). After conducting a bibliometric clustering analysis using term association of research publications, they remark upon the continuing diversity of the field. Typical of the elements used to describe information management work are: evaluation and selection of sources of information content; acquisition of sources and services; information research; description, provision of metadata, and organisation of information repositories; managing information content created by organisations; preparing interfaces for presentation or processes for dissemination of packaged information; undertaking information analysis and value-adding; determination of user requirements of information systems and application of these to system development; and training of users of information systems. The most explicit attention to discipline formation in information management has been paid by Rowley19. The approach that she has adopted is discursive, and involves characterisation of what are perceived to be elements of the field taking historical approaches into account. It is to some extent historiographic as a contribution to its model building. She adopts a viewpoint that information is practicebased with both systems and behavioural dimensions. She regards information processing as an activity common to all information users, and information management as being the province of professionals (albeit with imprecise professional boundaries), who draw upon many contributing disciplines including management science, information systems, computing science and cybernetics. She maintains that the structuring of information is fundamental to the professional approach and requires agents who will take responsibility for such structure, taking into account issues such as selection, time, hierarchy and sequence. With Butcher, Rowley has proposed model that they term the 7Rs. This involves information passing through a cycle between individuals and organisations and successively requiring Reading (where it comes from the public to the personal domain) Recognition, Re-interpretation, Reviewing (following here it may pass back to the public domain), Release, Re-structuring, Retrieval, then resuming the cycle. Their approach would appear to owe something to the philosophy of Popper, for 19
J Rowley 1998, 1999 op cit
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example the distinction between private knowledge and social knowledge as described by Kemp. It also seems to reflect to some extent the models of scientific communication explicated twenty years earlier by Garvey although there is no reference to these as sources20. Rowley also speaks in terms of information managers working at different levels within the framework of an information environment that she in turn portrays as having different levels: information contexts; information systems; and information retrieval. Within each of these she sees information managers as working within different levels of definition of information. Thus for her at the:
•
Environment level, the information processors are society as a whole, the information managers are corporations and educational institutions, and information is a commodity and constitutive force.
•
Contextual level, the processors are organisations, information is seen as a resource and the information managers are working in strategic positions or as organisational scientists.
•
System level, processing is carried out by a system, the information managers are system analysts and designers, and information is seen as data or thing.
•
Retrieval level, information processors are individuals, information managers are indexers, database designers, interface designers and information is regarded as subjective knowledge.
Frishammer, building upon Rowley’s work, has attempted to place information management and related activities such as environmental scanning and market research within an information processing context21. It is suggested that while Rowley subsumes information systems within information management, that an alternative 20
21
D Butcher & J E Rowley ‘The 7 Rs of information management’ Managing Information vol 5 no 2 1998 pp34-36; D A Kemp The nature of knowledge: an introduction for librarians Bingley London 1976; W D Garvey Communication, the essence of science: facilitating information exchange among librarians, scientists, engineers, and students Pergamon Oxford 1979. J Frishammar Characteristics in information processing approaches International Journal of Information Management vol 22 no 2 2002 pp143-156.
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perspective might actually be that the entire framework is concerned with information systems, since either an organisation or an individual can be regarded as an information system. Rowley’s 4 levels may be contrasted with the 3 domains22 that are used to explain information management and used in the case study protocol. The retrieval level may have components that are operational or analytical (through evaluation); the system level may be operational (system development and maintenance), or analytical (system, user or requirements analysis and evaluation); and both the contextual and environmental levels may be regarded as part of the administrative domain’s strategic concerns. As is the case with information science, information management is often described as interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary. Its proponents have yet to settle upon carefully developed procedures and methods that might assure disciplinary integrity and coherence. However there are many professionals who believe they are carrying out information management, and a variety of professional associations that have been formed making claims on the terminology23. The research reported in this paper attempts to extend the examination of discipline formation by consideration of how information science principles have been put into practice in the process of managing STI services. In this respect therefore, information management is defined as application of information science. It is the application of policy, analysis, and principles to techniques for improving representation, organisation, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.
Information management in STI service development This work extends an earlier analysis that looked at information management as applied in one Australian STI service24. It analyses several such services in order to
22 23 24
M Middleton 2002 op cit pp13-14 M Middleton 2002 op cit pp22-28 for examples M Middleton ‘Discipline formation in information management: Case study of scientific and technological information services’ Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology vol 2 2005 pp543-558. http://2005papers.iisit.org/I45f78Midd.pdf; http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00001433/
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consider the extent to which their genesis and development has taken place within an information management framework. Services analysed are the Australian Medical Index (AMI); Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Information (ANSTI); AANRO including in particular its Informit component, the Australian Natural Resources Index (ANR-I); Australian Transport Index (ATRI); AusGeoRef, the Australian component of the international GeoRef service, and its forerunner AESIS; and ENGINE, the Australian engineering database. Whereas Part I examined them in terms of characteristics, history and development, here they are interpreted within an information management model, in order to see the extent to which they exemplify such a framework. The following analysis therefore looks at the extent to which the STI services functioned within administrative, analytical and operational domains as defined for information management.
Administrative domain This domain of information management should embrace a planning and policy framework and therefore take account of the environment in which the information services operate, and strategy for implementation. Despite the struggle towards information policy that was outlined in the accompanying article (Part I), there were no concerted attempts by the STI services to embrace resource provision, to address overlap of coverage between databases, or to provide a platform with a standard interface through public policy. However, that is not to say that a planning framework was absent. It existed within individual institutions, and in some cases through collaboration between likeminded parties who could see the benefits within their subject areas. Some examples are as follows.
Genesis The strategic planning that led to the creation of the various services with their databases took place essentially within the disciplines that were interested in the content and application of the databases.
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However, there were moves from narrowly focused internal institutional approaches towards cooperative approaches in disciplinary areas. For example, Levick and Russell who were prominent in agricultural database development, were nevertheless pessimistic about cooperation in database development at the end of the 1970s. However from it not being a practical short term ambition, by 1983 a different perspective applied:
… We felt that from a national viewpoint, the resources necessary to achieve such contributions would be better devoted to efforts by these organisations to improve their bibliographic control. What we did not foresee was that in such a short time, these respective objectives would no longer be seen by the organisations concerned as competing uses of such resources: that they would find, as they have found, contributing to a national effort one way of achieving internal objectives25.
In some cases it took visionary individuals to prime the pump. Max Lay, then director of ARRB gave particular attention to the information needs of professionals such as engineers working in roads research, and to the research literature that had examined such needs26. He was fully cognisant of the importance of cooperative input, and of bibliographic control standards for documents. With respect to awareness of the importance of the role of unpublished reports (elsewhere called ‘grey’ literature), and in reporting their content along with that of the more formal documentation of published books, journals and proceedings he wrote:
25
26
G Levick ‘Bibliographic systems and their development’ in P Montgomery (ed),Computerised information systems in agriculture: proceedings of a national workshop on developments in computerised information systems in agriculture, Melbourne, Victoria June 22 and 23, 1983 Department of Agriculture Melbourne 1983 pp13-17. ARRB was established in 1960 as a national research body financed by the federal government and State road authorities through the National Association of Australian State Road Authorities (NAASRA; subsequently known as Austroads). Included among its objectives was to provide a national centre for road research information.
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The problem with these less formal documents is collecting them and ensuring that they are added to appropriate indexes. Often this task is made more difficult by the poor bibliographic standards of the report in question… The other problem related to the report literature concerns the confidential and restricted nature of many reports. However, the insertion into open indexes of bibliographic data for a confidential report is always encouraged as even the fact that the report on a subject exists is often a valuable guide to a searcher…27
ARRB did this through its library, through provision of a current awareness bulletin based upon material coming into its own collection, and through a periodic bibliography on roads and road transportation. However it was recognised that service could be improved if road authorities nationally through cooperative effort produced a joint index of publications. The National Association of Australian State Road Authorities (NAASRA, predecessor of Australian Roads) financed a pilot issue in 1973, which led to the first issue of Australian Road Index (ARI) in 1975. The AESIS database was initiated in 1976, following a national meeting at the Australian Mineral Foundation (AMF) in 1975, at which existing in-house systems of different agencies were discussed. AMF was accorded a mediating role for a national coordinated scheme with a governing council comprising representatives of the petroleum and exploration industries (which carried the main operational costs)28, along with professional and industrial associations and universities. AESIS was created using computing facilities made available by CSIRO who provided the platform for the database.
27
28
M G Lay The ARRB information system Australian Road Research Board Vermont South 1979 (ATM No. 7). D A Tellis ‘AESIS: a cooperative public/private sector development initiated by the private sector’ in G Peguero (ed.), Australian clearing houses and data bases: towards a national policy; proceedings of a national seminar conducted at Footscray Institute of Technology, 19 November 1982 Footscray Institute of Technology Footscray 1983 pp67-86.
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International relationships There were efforts to reconcile Australian and international coverage of information. ARRB became involved in OECD’s Road Research Program from 1977, and this entailed input of records of Australian documentation in order to receive the International Road Research Documentation (IRRD) database.
They delegated all of the operations of Australia’s membership of that program to the Road Research Board and membership of that program involved not only scientific exchange and cooperative research programs and international meetings ... They had a very strong information program and membership of that program, which Australia joined as they saw it as a means of getting access to the world’s information on roads and transport.
Membership of that program carried a commitment to
contribute as well as to use, and Australia began to contribute to the international road research database in late seventies … ARRB set up its information management library type systems to conform with the very well documented standards that the International Road Research Documentation system had. (S. Quinn, personal communication, 22nd June,
2004)
Whereas a subset of ATRI provides Australian international input, ANSTI consists of Australia’s entire input to the International Nuclear Information System (INIS) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), downloaded from the international database and reformatted. Australia’s membership of IAEA obligated it to begin contributing records to INIS from commencement in 1972. The entire framework for the system including scope and forms of input, software support, evaluation of potential use, vocabulary maintenance and establishment of a clearinghouse for material, was created by a secretariat in Vienna, Austria. Any influence on direction of the service from individual countries was provided by national liaison officers. Creation of AMI began in 1983 following discussion by the Life Sciences Consultative Committee which was responsible for the administration of Medline.
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NLA committed funding for indexing and data entry for the first 7,000 items which were complementary to the Australian Medline input that had been created in the USA since the 1960s. Neither AMI nor Medline before it was introduced within the framework of a general national information policy that tried to provide guidance on how publishing and documentary output across the disciplines should be reported and managed. Neither were there debates about institutional responsibility for processing the material, particularly with respect to overlap with other disciplines. Since 2001, some key Australian journals which are covered in Medline have also been covered in AMI. All aspects of health and medicine are covered, with emphasis on clinical medicine and paraprofessional fields.
Governance AusGeoRef, ANSTI, AMI and ENGINE are each created by individual institutions that administer all aspects of the service. Because of ARRB’s founding membership within AUSINET, the governance of that network was a significant influence on the strategic development of ATRI. The ARRB was a relatively small institution among bigger players on AUSINET, and the financial commitment as a member was considerable. It justified this because it could use AUSINET as a database creator as well as user; because it provided access to the systems staff, and more powerful computing facilities than it could justify for its own purposes alone; because it opened up access to a wider use community; and as it felt a commitment to support for production and dissemination of Australian databases. An AUSINET Users’ Committee had been established at the outset for network management in 1977, with its first meeting in Hobart. It was to guide such matters as negotiation with ACI Computer Services concerning access, costs and scheduling of databases, negotiation with respective database suppliers, provision of documentation, and maintenance of communication between users. The Users’ Committee comprised all organisations joining the network. There was also a technical sub-committee, for resolution of technical issues such as database conversion and structures, system performance, and scheduling, and an AUSINET Liaison Committee, which was a committee of NLA’s Council and representatives
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of database suppliers with an operational role advising on development and use of resources29.
Analytical domain The analytical domain of information management is part of both the operational level through performance evaluation, and the systems level, for example through user needs and requirements analysis. Although each of the services carried out informal analysis, the extent of formal assessment of both requirements and performance varied widely.
User needs For AESIS was the major analysis of anticipated user needs for the service was a 1972 survey. However although this survey sought information on individual user needs within surveyed organisations, the resulting document confined itself to reporting institutional coverage and current information provision along with recommendations concerning an agency to handle an STI service30. Subsequently, AMF strove to be comprehensive within the subject areas delineated. With AMI, there was no specific attention to user needs or requirements analysis (for example by survey), as part of the process of establishing AMI. Instead, the inclusive coverage of health materials, allied with flexible retrieval software was assumed to address anticipated user requirements. In the case of ATRI, no formal evaluation of user requirements preceded database creation. Database elements were defined according to the full extent of bibliographic data at the time, and most elements were made searchable for
29
30
The committee structure is described by Bays who was critical of the initial loose arrangement and advocated a more formal arrangement with a secretariat: M Bays ‘The Australian Road Index: a cooperative venture’ Australian Special Libraries News vol 12 no 1 pp34-37 1978; M Bays The beginnings of Ausinet and the committee structure by which the network is currently managed Australian Road Research Board Vermont South 1978(ARRMS 78/152). P Dixon & D A Tellis AMF information services survey Australian Mineral Development Laboratories, Adelaide (AMDEL Report; 911); an overview of the AESIS analytical approach is given in M Middleton 2005 op cit.
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flexibility using the AUSINET STAIRS software. This flexibility has been maintained on the subsequent platforms and carried through to Informit. Judgments about content were based upon the scope of what library users required, and the already defined scope of IRRD. However, the database of Australian Road Research in Progress (ARRP) that was built concurrently by ARRB gave valuable insights into information requirements of users:
The other component … was the annual surveys we did of Australian road research in progress with a triennial updating survey, … fully done to the IRRD specs and that documented the research effort within Australia. They were big survey exercises … information was not only available in our local database but also in the international one, and we also printed it nd
in directories. (S. Quinn, personal communication, 22
June, 2004)
System requirements The initial development of services was before the online era. Development of user interfaces was not yet on the agenda, and output requirements for batch processes of what was then termed Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) services were essentially developed experimentally. For example, before the development of ANSTI an SDI service from INIS tapes was developed. It provided a batched facility with limited Boolean search capability, data element and category searching. CSIRO, which had participated in a pilot current awareness service from Chemical Abstracts from 1967, developed a batch current awareness search facility at its Division of Computing Research. The search functionality was notable for providing for a combination of Boolean and weighted search logic and truncation which had to be established on punched cards, and was adaptable to locally produced databases such as AGRIS and ABOA (precursors of AANRO). The databases with Australian content were established within the online era, and generally were created and searched on systems that had been developed generically to deal with a range of databases (as Informit does now). IBM’s
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STAIRS retrieval software was most prominent in this respect. Any development of it to accommodate the specifics of STI services was limited, but would have taken place as a result of representations of the AUSINET User’s Committee mentioned above. There were search functionality improvements in STAIRS such as the Bibliographic Retrieval Services Inc version in 1979, and database structuring to permit merged postings across databases. For the AUSINET implementation this was CROS – after ‘cross-searching’ the index of databases, a searcher then moved to the database of choice.
Resource identification For AMI, the NLA was in a strong position to undertake journal coverage, and it was seen as appropriate to begin a distinct national database.
I don’t think there was a lot of research but we were aware that some other regions of the world had constructed regional adjuncts to Medline. … because there were a lot of Australian journals and we (NLA) had access …, … a useful thing for the library to do, and we had strong support from the Department of Health. (S. Henderson, personal
communication, 24th June, 2004).
The identification and evaluation of journals to be covered was undertaken by medical librarians in New South Wales. For ATRI, the identification of documents required for coverage is carried out based upon ARRB’s knowledge of material being published in Australia, complemented by material being reported by the cooperating institutions.
Performance analysis For AMI, performance evaluation of searches being conducted for ‘end users’ by library intermediaries has been carried out, but in general there have not
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been attempts to monitor the performance of searching either by intermediaries, or by end users. Another aspect of performance that might be monitored is the indexing input:
… there was meant to have been an evaluation of the indexing services but some of the evaluations were put back for various reasons, economic and how many the library could handle at once…. It hadn’t been done up until the time I left the indexing service, … (S. Henderson, personal
communication, 24th June, 2004)
For AESIS performance evaluation carried out included the use of an evaluative framework set up in a study by Pruett on the international Georef database. This was used with reference to AESIS to evaluate such things as subject and material (e.g. thesis) coverage; currency (shown to be markedly higher than other geoscience services); incidences of duplicate records; indexing; and training programs. There was also examination of performance in terms of cost effectiveness and benefit31.
Operational domain This domain may be thought of as any technical operations carried out within an information life cycle, ranging from creation of information and metainformation, storage, organisation of the information (in this case within databases), retrieval and presentation. In the development phase of Australian services, storage was of much greater concern than now. A cause of considerable issue with the then Medlars Advisory Committee was the scheduling of aggregations of a database so that a span accumulating to three years was produced, then the oldest year dropped off in order to begin accumulating from the most recent 2-3 years. On AUSINET where a number of 31
D A Tellis ‘Management, control and cost benefit’ in P Judge & B Gerrie (eds.) Small scale bibliographic databases Academic Press Sydney 1986 pp73-98; an overview of AESIS performance analysis is in M Middleton 2005 op cit.
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large international databases such as parts of SSCI, Compendex and INSPEC were stored, there was scheduling of these databases so that different ones were online at different days of the week. At the time (late 1970s), SSCI was about 100 Mb and Compendex about 500 Mb (far bigger than the Australian databases mounted with them). Even in the 1990s the Department of Health’s Medline platform had 1966 and 1972 backfiles online on Wednesdays only. The issue faded away, not just because of leaps forward in storage capacity, but because of greatly increased telecommunications bandwidth (and reduced access costs) to international database, making their mounting in Australia unnecessary.
Creation of databases The creation of the databases was initially undertaken via coding sheets corresponding to database definitions, with data entry and batch creation of databases taking place. For example the AESIS database was created on CSIRONET by dispatch of coding forms to CSIRO from AMF for paper tape data entry. Later data entry took place directly from AMF, and from 1982 this was managed through a host DEC PDP11/44 minicomputer for validation, then storage on a Cyber76 on CSIRONET in Canberra. Software support was provided by CSIRO’s CILES System Development Group. The live database was updated monthly on CSIRONET. From 1980, quarterly updates were also produced for AUSINET where they were mounted after conversion to STAIRS with software developed by ACI Computer Services. Australia’s input to INIS (later to become ANSTI) also began by transfer of coding sheets to paper tape which was sent to Austria for input to the international database. Paper was soon replaced by magnetic tape, and eventually the database went online. All of the indexing of documents is carried out by ANSTO. When Australia first began contributing to INIS, it provided input on punched paper tape according to a structured worksheet format. Before long, this approach was supplanted by magnetic tape images of input. ANSTI is now created by downloading the Australian affiliation content using the BASIS software that supports INIS, and combining this with the
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Australian source input, where together they are reformatted according to the requirements of Informit. Where documents include abstracts these may be written, or existing journal abstracts may be used. For example, because ANSTO has since 1983 been part of the CSIRO Library network, it has access to CSIRO’s journal publishing data, and is able to use abstracts from relevant items:
… we’re part of the CSIRO electronic journal access which they run off their own server in Canberra, what they call their CSIRO electronic journal collection where they’ve gone out and negotiated with various publishers and then they bring the data inhouse and then we’re part of that … So we’re able to log in … for CSIRO electronic journal collection and … can get Elsevier and …. CSIRO Publishing…. (S Gorringe, personal
communication, 28th June, 2004).
AMI data entry was initially undertaken at NLA from the worksheets using an adaptation of the Health Department’s software for input to their library catalogue, HEMLOC. This software, Data Input Management System (DIMS) was converted to a generic form for data entry purposes. Validation was undertaken on a batched basis of the MeSH indexing terms and for citation format. Subsequent data correction was carried out manually. Now that Informit is the platform, indexing is done directly into a DB/Textworks database and uploaded from there. When ARRB became a member of AUSINET, it began producing the hard copy of ARI as an equivalent Australian Road Research Database (ARRD), making use of the Advance Text Management System (ATMS) for database creation. Creators of records for all databases on AUSINET were introduced to the text management software, and functionality such as tagging syntax and text manipulation, by a series of ‘Learn ATMS’ lessons and an introductory manual. This complemented a manual for using IBM’s STAIRS retrieval software. A subset of ARRD comprising Australian input for IRRD that at the time was growing at the rate of about 12,000 records per year. The IRRD database was
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initially held in 2 forms: as a consolidated international database, and as a latest month file that enabled current awareness profiles to be run off with each new update.
… so that there were several really good cooperative reasons for having that system. There was the national system of various state bodies and the national research body that benefited by having a shared information resource, and from that we could extract the material that was appropriate to put into the international database and just spin it out and send it away on a tape. The international database had more stringent requirements for inclusion, anything that was included had to be innovative, it had to be research oriented, it had to have an informative abstract and it had to be indexed in a greater degree of detail. (S.
Quinn, personal communication, 22nd June, 2004)
IRRD became International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) and ATRI and the ITRD component are now produced concurrently. Records are tagged in ATRI and processed in monthly batches in-house in ITRD format and emailed to TRL (UK) which manages the database. Examples of elements of record formats for databases are in Part I.
Thesauri and indexing For AMI, contract indexers provide input on a piecework basis. The rates initially established assumed that they would be indexing 4 items per hour. Worksheets require bibliographic details of documents received at NLA along with an abstract if none was already provided, and indexing based upon MeSH, controlled vocabulary of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Principles adopted for indexing follow closely those that have been employed by NLM since the initiation of its Medlars service. The thesaurus used for indexing references that go into ANSTI is the INIS thesaurus which has been utilised by all INIS contributors since the beginning of
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the database. The thesaurus has been reprinted regularly as part of a report series. The thesaurus is used in conjunction with database building so that narrower terms assigned by indexers automatically generate additional hierarchically broader terms for the same record, to support searching. For example ‘iodine’ generates ‘halogens’, ‘nonmetals’ and ‘elements’. A formal process enables contributing countries to propose and have terms included. Therefore there are not local variations on the thesaurus, thus in Australia’s case the vocabulary is identical for INIS and ANSTI. Because of the extent of bibliographic control employed for INIS, and in so doing also enjoyed by ANSTI, there is other documentation used to standardise input, improve information quality, and thereby assist with searching. This includes terminology and codes for countries and international organisations; authority lists for corporate entries, report number prefixes, and journal titles; and an outline of broad subject categories, their codes, and scope descriptions.
Training and user assistance Training tools comprise database guides for individual databases that outline their structure. In the case of AMI not only is there an AMI Manual but there’s a Medlars Course Manual, a Medlars searching self-training guide, a NETSDI manual and various working tools for MeSH – the Medical Subject Headings as an annotated alphabetical list, in permuted form, and as hierarchical ‘tree’ structures. Much of the material from different manuals, and in particular the interfaces for online searching was brought together in the Recipe book service32. This loose leaf service was commenced in 1980 and continued until 1995, in order to consolidate in one document the information that online users needed to be aware of in searching multiple databases in multiple services. It was organised according to online service. Databases available on services were itemised, but the emphasis was on operational aspects such as connection and charging. These accompanied an overview of general approaches to searching, and therefore of the retrieval software such as STAIRS on AUSINET and AUSTRALIS. 32
Recipe book service of online searching 1-14 edn Online Information Resources Ltd Doncaster 1980-1985.
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Current awareness Initially SDIs were run on update tapes. For example with INIS and Medline, a retrospective search was carried out, and the ongoing profile was maintained for sequentially processing with batches of other profiles against update tapes. Other current awareness products were developed. For instance, from AESIS there was Earth Science and Related Information Selected Annotated Titles (ESRISAT) that selectively covered earth sciences serial publications received by the AMF and South Australian Department of Mines and Energy libraries and State Library of South Australia. Seven indexes: subject, locality, author, map sheet, mine/deposit/well/name, stratigraphic and serial title were created for a monthly service which also had semi-annual cumulations33.
Discussion The term ‘information management’ was not used during the genesis and development of STI services in Australia. However, many of the principles by which it is presently guided were employed, if not expressed. Most of the elements of information management as it is currently practised were present during development, and may in some cases be regarded as exemplary for present systems. It is possible to look at the services from an information management standpoint that considers the extent to which they have been developed within the framework of a domain model. To an extent, the principles as expressed by Rowley are also accommodated, although they would benefit from some modification using the domain-oriented approach. From Rowley’s environmental viewpoint, the services have certainly been developed within a strategic planning framework. In these cases the planning has owed more to the requirements of individual information sectors, than to a concerted public policy approach. This has had the advantage of the engagement of the respective sectors, but has led to uncoordinated coverage, unstandardised metainformation, and
33
D A Tellis 1983 op cit.
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therefore barriers to sharing information. It has also produced alternative approaches to international coverage of material, so that there is no consistency in the way that Australian material published locally and internationally is consolidated. If Rowley’s contextual level is employed, there appeared to be significant attention paid to establishing databases as information resources when they were first created. However, there appears presently to be some risk to the continuation of these resources, because their coverage is being constrained or poorly resourced, and there is limited drive for their development to support other functions such as digital repository linkage and research performance analysis. It is encouraging however, to see the AANRO evolution to support a combination of a web-based knowledge base and an alternatively formatted resource via Informit, with different groups of users in mind. Although the environmental and contextual are separated above, there does not appear to be any benefit in doing so, since an administrative domain with its focus on policy and planning encompasses both. It could be that environmental and contextual approaches are separable respectively into external and internal planning influences. However, there are many information management situations, including those for STI services, where it is problematical to differentiate these in relation to strategic planning. Public policy and business-to-business relationships while external in origin, greatly influence internal planning. The analytical domain of information management was possibly the most underdeveloped at the outset of services. Although there was some attention to user requirements, the overall context in which databases were being used could have been better researched. This omission continues to be reflected in the present. More sensitivity to the context in which the services are operating may have seen them produce more in the way of tailored or current awareness products, along with alternative functionality such as ability to measure research performance through citations. This domain may be construed as an element of Rowley’s system and retrieval levels At a system level the analysis required to develop the services in the first place was experimental rather than user-directed, and subsequent performance analysis has been relatively perfunctory. Nevertheless the way forward was shown. The analytical domain at the retrieval level should principally be about performance evaluation and
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quality control. While procedures are in place for monitoring and quantifying throughput, little attention has been paid to areas of evaluation such indexing quality, thesaurus utility, and retrieval effectiveness. The operational domain may also be taken to be part of Rowley’s systems and retrieval levels. At the systems level, the current platforms provided by Georef and by Informit are established and provide routine functionality. The current Informit platform provides a unifying influence for five of the services. It may also provide the flexibility and the vitality to see them developed to support additional services. Operational retrieval features including metainformation creation, vocabulary control, information retrieval and presentation have been present since the initiation of the services, and have been improved along with developments in software and technology.
Conclusion Part I of this work provided an overview of the characteristics of a number of Australian STI services, with reference to the policy environment in which they were developed, and with some commentary about their continuing utility. Part II takes these same services and considers them as exemplars of discipline formation in information management. This is done using making use of Middleton’s book on information management and Rowley’s work on discipline formation, each of which endeavours to articulate a framework in which information management takes place. The analysis shows STI services provide useful models for expression of the information management framework. The work is limited in scope by its restriction to bibliographic services, and limited in detail by gaps in documentation about these services and recollections of stakeholders. However it complements case study work in information management documented for example by Orna34, and extends this work by showing that a useful framework may be used for more discipline-based analysis of such cases. The protocol that was employed provided a useful analytical approach that may also be adopted to examine other information services and the information management milieu in general. Hopefully, this will add to the rigour of case documentation, which in turn will help to improve disciplinary definition. 34
E Orna Practical information policies 2nd edn Gower Aldershot 1999
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Acknowledgements This document draws upon a number of case studies to which many people contributed through formal interview, or responses to queries. Particular thanks are due to Bev Allen (Geoscience Australia), Lynne Beaumont (ARRB Group), Rob Birtles (CSIRO), Warwick Cathro (NLA), Barry Cheney (VPL), Brenda Gerrie (Infoscan), Lea Giles-Peters (SLQ). Sandra Gorringe (ANSTO), Hans Groenewegen, Sara Hearn (Informit), Sandra Henderson (NLA), Mary Huxlin (ANSTO), Peter Judge, Max Lay, Alison Martin (ARRB Group), Ian McCallum (Libraries Alive!), Russell McCaskie (CSIRO), Sherrey Quinn (Libraries Alive!), Rosa Serratore (ARRB Group), John Shortridge (VBM), Des Tellis,
Elena Vvedenskaia (EA), Rolfe
Westwood (CSIRO), Janette Wright (Informit). Thanks are also due to Christine Bruce and Guy Gable of QUT for comments on work in progress, and to anonymous referees for constructive criticism on structure and content.
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Chapter 7: Information management framework
7.1.
Journal article: Development of IM disciplinary framework
This paper analysed earlier material by Rowley (1998) and suggested a revision of her framework for the information management discipline. It has been accepted for publication in:
Middleton, M. (in press) A framework for information management: using case studies
to
test
application.
International Journal of Information
Management
Abstract An analysis is undertaken of a disciplinary framework for information management suggested by Rowley in 1998 in order to consider its applicability to information services. The analysis uses several case studies that have been conducted on the development of scientific and technological information (STI) services. These services have all been involved in the creation of bibliographic and associated databases of Australian STI material. The analysis examines information management domains through the looking glass of the Rowley framework which has as its elements the information environment, information context, information systems, and information retrieval. It is concluded that while STI services exemplify information management in terms of the framework suggested, that the framework could be adapted to be of more benefit in expressing the disciplinary basis and its professional setting. This might be achieved by removal of the differentiation between environment and context, and by elaborating the information systems and information retrieval levels further into analytical and operational domains.
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Contribution to research This work provides a critique of an earlier framework proposed for the information management discipline, and proposes modifications to that framework based upon the preceding STI case studies, which in turn draw upon the organisation of and examples in the book. It therefore enhances the conceptual framework for the discipline of information management, provides for adaptation of a model within which the field may be understood, and within which practice cases may be interpreted. These may in turn contribute to disciplinary formation by improving definition of the professional and providing pointers to curriculum development.
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Introduction A recent study of Australian scientific and technological information (STI) services was undertaken to examine their characteristics and progress. Part of the analysis was concerned with the extent to which their development reflected discipline formation in information management. The analysis was based upon case studies of several services maintained by government and the private sector, and is reported in detail elsewhere (Middleton, 2006a, 2006b). This paper draws upon that investigation by making use of the case studies to examine the applicability of the framework of information management suggested by Rowley (1998). Studies of the disciplinary framework within which information professionals practice have ranged from investigation of the boundaries of subject content, through to analysis of the ways in which the members organise themselves and provide education for those entering the profession. Subject content has been principally an academic concern with a concentration upon the elements of information science, and explanation of research areas to be pursued. Analysis of professional organisation has come more from professional associations as they assert territory, or practitioners within such associations who are interested in professional development. This study attempts to bridge the discipline content and professional concerns by investigation of information practice in a particular environment, and by relating that practice to the disciplinary areas of information science. The Rowley framework is chosen, since it is an endeavour to provide a model for that bridge. As the cases appear to represent specific examples of information principles being put into practice, they are worthy of examination with respect to an information management model. This work begins with a brief review of studies of professionalism and discipline formation. It then uses the chosen disciplinary framework that has been proposed, in order to test its applicability to what might be represented as an information management working environment.
Profession and discipline Information professionals have for some time wrestled with the issue of whether they comprise a profession that is based upon the tenets of a coherent discipline.
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Sociological enquiry into the features of professions in general has led to identification of professional characteristics along the following lines:
i.
An evolving corpus of tested knowledge that is generally accepted by its adherents.
ii.
Acceptance of underlying models of explanation for the knowledge base.
iii.
Continuing effort to develop the knowledge base through research.
iv.
Application of the theoretical and intellectual knowledge in a particular ways to solve human and social problems.
v.
Utilisation of guidelines for application of professional practice and technical standards.
vi.
Development of guidelines for conduct of professional practice, for example through a code of ethics.
vii. Altruism, whereby unselfish concern for others is supposed, although this may perhaps be ‘by means of a reward system in which moral obligation and self-interest often coincide and fuse, the institutional arrangements of the professions tend to make it a matter of self-interest for individual practitioners to act altruistically’(Merton & Gieryn, 1982). viii. Provision of guidelines for preparation and the training into the area. The main emphasis of this paper is points iv and v from the list above. That is, there is a consideration of the bridge between the theoretical principles that are espoused in the field, and the way that they are put into practice using the development of STI services as case studies. Elements i to iii are principally concerned with an accepted knowledge base, and are usually a focus for those who approach understanding of a discipline from an academic viewpoint – continuing to ask the question of what constitutes information science. A number of works have provided overviews and debate about information science’s disciplinary boundaries. For example there have been compilations of papers that endeavour to show the range of investigation within the topic. An early example was that of Saracevic (1970), and in subsequent decades there have been similar collections of papers accompanied by commentary on what constitutes the field, for example by Meadows (1987) and Williams and Carbo (1997).
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These collections have been complemented by expositions that seek to provide a consolidated overview of information science. For example the work by the Vickerys has reached its third edition (Vickery & Vickery, 2004) since original publication in 1987, with later editions incorporating more on information seeking to complement the systems-oriented information retrieval. Raber (2003) considers information from physical, behavioural and social viewpoints after first considering the matter of definition of information. Many enquiries take as their starting point the problem of defining ‘information’, and some concentrate upon it. For example Bates (2005) has reiterated the enduring designation of information as ‘pattern of organization of matter and energy’ for its usability across the physical, biological and social contexts. A continuing theme has been the interdisciplinarity or ‘boundary spanning’ of research. Less often is there exploration of the application of information science in areas such as systems and management, although Griffiths (2000) gives examples of practice. If there is a discipline of information science then, it is perhaps a metadiscipline that draws upon what Griffiths terms ‘disciplines of information’ that include studies as diverse as cybernetics, bibliometrics, semantics and systemics. In research terms, this has been recently manifest in the U.S.A. by the I-School movement where there has been an alignment toward inclusion of multidisciplinary approaches to information research, rather than attempt to create boundaries around particular aspects of information study (Harmon, 2006). Items vi to viii from the list above are about how entry of new professionals is managed, and how the profession comports itself. Entry is managed through educational requirements, and there has been a continually evolving discourse on curriculum for example by Gorman and Corbitt (2002), and by Tedd (2003). This has been accompanied by research into educational requirements, for example by Abbott (2003), along with the suggested courses or curricula that are advanced by the professional associations themselves. These same associations may also produce codes of practice as in the case of AIIP (Association of Independent Information Professionals, 2005). Analysis of this connection between discipline and profession may take the form of statements of what an information professional does and what principles this work is based upon. For example Hornby and Andretta (2001) canvass contrasting views on convergence and diversification of the profession. They maintain that in Britain
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diversification has been turned into a strength by promoting information management as a discipline that is highly flexible in addressing the diverse needs of the information profession. This has been achieved for example through modularisation within qualification degree structures. The changing boundaries of practice have been debated at some length by Myburgh (2005). She considers that the traditional paradigm of the profession is ‘riddled with anomalies’ and lacking fundamental theories, and looks for a new way forward with less document-based interpretation of ‘information’. This paper is less concerned with information science as a discipline, or the way in which those who apply it organise themselves professionally. It is more concerned with how the principles of the science may be employed in practice (as indicated in items iv and v). This gives the opportunity for expressing information management as a discipline with its own principles (drawing upon those of information science). Although much has been written about the elements of information management, there is relatively little that tries to express a framework of principles under which it is carried out. One who has suggested a framework that associates principles with practice is Rowley (1998; 1999). Her propositions are used as a lens through which the case studies are examined with a view to test the framework’s application to a specific setting for information management.
A discipline of information management Both information systems and information management are spoken of as disciplines in the practice of information science (Vickery & Vickery, 2004). However there seem to be professional, research and conceptual barriers that inhibit an inclusive approach to them as a discipline across such applications. This disjunction has been observed repeatedly. For example Martin (1993) observed that the data processing, management and information science fields showed little overlap of coverage in three different databases with respect to information management documents. Later, Ellis, Allen, and Wilson (1999) used citation analysis of the subfields of user studies and information retrieval to illustrate the lack of dialogue between respective fields. Markedly, a recent review of information science as a discipline in the UK (Webber, 2003) makes little reference to studies in
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information systems, or examination of an information systems/information science boundary. In disciplinary study of information systems, emphasis seems to be substantially on the systems and process; in information science the emphasis seems to be substantially on the information and its content. They have in common an emphasis on social context and use, but this has not led to a mutual centre of attention. For example a joint disciplinary consideration of information systems and information science (Khazanchi & Munkvold, 2000) found a need to differentiate them, seeing information science as a secondary reference discipline of information systems. Wilson (2003) has stated that a coherent educational curriculum and a research agenda must be associated with information management if it is to have a viable role in organisational performance, with its functions being accepted as a key part of organisational structures. Although some scholars have spoken of an information management discipline, the relationship between what is pursued through research and what is applied by practicing information professionals remains tenuous. If we are to convey information management as the practice of information science, then it is necessary to define a framework, but this is unfortunately clouded by the many interpretations of the words ‘information management’. As noted by Macevièiûtė and Wilson (2002) the term may be used to represent the management of IT, information systems management, or management information systems, and may also be confused with the more recent catchphrase knowledge management. There continues to be limited conceptual reinforcement between the science of information and its application through management. However, Rowley has attempted to express a framework that characterises information management as a discipline by considering how information science principles are applied in practice. Rowley adopts a viewpoint that information is practice-based with both systems and behavioural dimensions. She puts forward information processing as an activity common to all information users, and information management as being the province of professionals (albeit with imprecise professional boundaries), who draw upon many contributing disciplines including management science, information systems, computing science and cybernetics. She maintains that the structuring of information is fundamental to the professional approach and requires agents who will take
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responsibility for such structure, taking into account issues such as selection, time, hierarchy and sequence. Rowley envisages information managers working at different levels within the framework. She portrays this framework as having different levels: information environment; information contexts; information systems; and information retrieval. Thus for her at the:
•
Environment level, the information processors are society as a whole, the information managers are corporations and educational institutions, and information is a commodity and constitutive force.
•
Contextual level, the processors are organisations, information is seen as a resource and the information managers are working in strategic positions, or as organisational scientists.
•
System level, information processing is carried out by systems, information managers are system analysts and designers, and information is seen as data or thing.
•
Retrieval level, information processors are individuals, information managers are indexers, database designers, interface designers and information is regarded as subjective knowledge.
Can such a framework be used to illuminate the information processing that happens with provision of bibliographic information services? Case studies of STI services in Australia are used to explore this.
Case studies of STI services The study of Australian STI services was undertaken as part of research that examined the influences on their initial development in Australia, but which also analysed their progress from the viewpoint of discipline formation in information management.
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The services on which detailed analysis was conducted were: Australian Agriculture and Natural Resources Online (AANRO), produced by Infoscan for several government instrumentalities; Australian Medical Index (AMI), produced by the National Library of Australia (NLA); Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Information (ANSTI), produced by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO); Australian Transport Index (ATRI), produced by ARRB Group Ltd (formerly Australian Road Research Board); AusGeoref produced by Geoscience Australia; and the Australian Engineering Database (ENGINE), produced by Engineers Australia. The AMI, ANSTI, ATRI and AusGeoref databases are each coupled with preexisting international databases in the same subject area. AMI is supplementary to Medline and ATRI to International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD), although in each case there is some overlap of content. ANSTI is a subset of the International Nuclear Information System (INIS) and AusGeoref is a subset of Georef.
Method A descriptive case study methodology (Yin, 2003) was applied with the unit of analysis comprising a system of action, applied over multiple cases. The case study protocol was carried out with assistance from interviews with key participants, use of different versions of databases, and reference to literature, archives, and supporting material created to support database users. Case study questions were structured according to the context of a recent book where information management is expressed in terms of the domains: Operational (the procedures required for structured information handling); Analytical (user, resources and systems analysis and evaluation); and Administrative (policy and planning aspects and strategic). These three domains of information management, outlined earlier by Diener (1992), were expanded in some detail in the book (Middleton, 2002). The book acts as a description of a disciplinary framework for information management, and its precepts may be tested in environments thought to be representative of information management. The information collected from case studies exploring this work was reported by Middleton (2006a; 2006b). The services examined were found generally to operate
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within the information management framework expressed in terms of domains. This paper takes the opportunity to examine the STI services more specifically with reference to the alternative framework proposed by Rowley (1998) in order to consider the extent to which these services may be explained within such a framework as exemplary of information management. Thereby the explanatory power of the Rowley model is tested. The following subheadings are based upon the levels of Rowley’s framework. Within each, there is further subdivision to consider particular aspects of the level with respect to the STI services.
Information environment The STI services were initiated during the 1970s in the setting of an information environment where the influences could be regarded as public policy development (political element), along with a drive by some institutions and scientific disciplines to provide for better information access through documents (societal element), and improvements in information retrieval systems (technological element). Rowley’s ‘environment level’ sees information management being carried out at this level corporately – that is by institutions taking into account a societal framework. If this is happening with respect to the STI services, we might expect them to be developed within a public policy agenda, or to address the professional demands of the scientific and technological disciplines that they may service, or to respond to technological changes that facilitate improvement in information management. Each of these elements is considered in turn:
Public policy development With the exception of a government paper in the early 1990s that strove to articulate the elements of a national policy (Australia. Parliament. House of Representatives. Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies, 1991), Australia has eschewed integrated information policy. Present interest in the area is driven by communications, the media, and development of information industries. However at the time of development of STI services, public policy was focused more strongly on scientific information
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provision, for example through the Department of Science (Australian Department of Science, 1985), and as a result of the STISEC proposals (Australia. Scientific and Technological Information Services Enquiry Committee, 1973). These proposals included both the development of a national information policy, and a national central STI authority to act as focus for activities and promote their orderly development. However, a focus for STI leadership was never satisfactorily attained, because the interests of the two most prominent and likely lead agencies, the NLA and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), were not fully reconciled. Nevertheless, piecemeal policy initiatives within individual government departments did stimulate the progress of STI services. In some respects the progress they achieved was in spite of policy and the lack of coordination between the lead institutions that established and provided the services. Regardless of the misgivings about coordination, the ad hoc development resulted in extensive services based upon international databases, complemented by the production of local databases. More detailed discussion of public policy factors at the time is provided in Middleton (2004; 2006a). From the viewpoint of information management, a lively policy environment existed that had bearing upon the formation of STI services in the 1970s. There was recognition of the need for a framework to promote a more significant role for STI resources in economic development, and a desire to record comprehensively the national scientific documentation output. Strategies to achieve this included improving representation of local scientific and technological output within international databases, or complementing of those databases with local material. These strategies were applied at the level of particular scientific disciplines rather than across the broad range of science and technology.
Disciplinary demand Bibliographic control of STI in Australia was fragmented as noted by STISEC. However at the disciplinary level this was addressed in a number of
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quarters by specific agencies that supported the professions. For example in the case of earth sciences information, the Australian Mineral Foundation (AMF) was established, among other things to launch a resource centre for the mining and petroleum industries. It was given a mediating role for a national coordinated information scheme. This brought together in a clearinghouse, material from a variety of agencies that generated significant amounts of information, among them the State Geological Surveys, and Mines Departments; the national Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (BMR); the mineral research areas of CSIRO; and a number of mining and exploration companies that had repositories of their own material, but had previously undertaken little collaborative effort to share it. AMF began to produce print-based current awareness services, and built the AESIS database which was the precursor of AusGeoref. In the case of transport information, ARRB was established in 1960 as a national research body financed by the federal government along with State government road authorities through the National Association of Australian State Road Authorities. Its objectives included provision of a national centre for road research information. The then director was a visionary who gave particular attention to the information needs of professionals such as engineers working in the area, and to the research literature that had examined such needs. He was fully cognizant of the importance of cooperative input, and of bibliographic control standards for documents, for example, with respect to awareness of the importance of the role of unpublished reports (elsewhere called ‘grey’ literature), and in reporting their content along with that of the more formal documentation of published books, journals and proceedings. ARRB provided an information service through its library, through provision of a current awareness bulletin based upon material coming into its own collection, and through a periodic bibliography on roads and road transportation. ARRB became involved in OECD’s Road Research Program from 1977, and this entailed input of records of Australian documentation in order to receive the then IRRD (now ITRD) database. In May 1979 a participants group was formed for discussion of developments to, and
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improvement of, the system and databases. ARRB subsequently hosted annual meetings in order to foster continuing cooperation. Both AusGeoref (formerly AESIS) and ATRI have for many years now been online bibliographic databases that support professional needs.
Technological change Initial development of services was undertaken at a time when systems were moving from batch mode to online. Those working in the area were beginning to realise the potential of moving on from what were initially typesetting programs to assist the batch production of abstracting and indexing services in print form. The examples that follow are essentially the product of information management at the systems level, but have arisen because of the capabilities introduced by technological development of both software and hardware capabilities. Procedures were established that would enable building of search profiles for searching of updates – selective dissemination of information (SDI). For example CSIRO had participated in a pilot current awareness service from Chemical Abstracts from 1967. Then, beginning with Chemical Abstracts Service CA Condensates, it made available databases from 1972 for batch current awareness searching through its Division of Computing Research. For searching purposes, all overseas databases arriving on tape were converted to a common local format aligned to the extant standards, MARC and ANZI Z39.2. The search functionality was notable for providing for a combination of Boolean and weighted search logic and truncation which had to be established on punched cards. The INIS service had begun in the early 1970s to create profiles for batch searching of tapes from the consolidated INIS database. Similarly, both the Victorian and New South Wales Departments of Agriculture experimented with production of printed current awareness indexes using batch software. These turned out to be forerunners for the current AANRO.
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These and the other STI services gradually moved to online delivery beginning with the Medline service in 1975. Migration to Medline was undertaken along with the reformulation of about 1600 existing current awareness profiles for the new software (Middleton, 1977). The network supporting Medline was then developed with links established initially to a limited number of institutions. These facilities were initiated to provide services from international databases. However in a number of cases they engendered Australian databases. The locally produced compilations became practicable with the advent of online services. ANSTI begins life as a subset of the international database INIS, before being hived off for local use. AusGeoref is created as a subset of the international Georef database. ATRI is created along with input to ITRD. AMI, AANRO and Engine are produced as stand alone databases of national material. AMI now provides links to full text provision of material as well, AANRO does this for material that is already digitally available, and the others are looking to follow suit.
Information context The contextual aspect is seen by Rowley as the second level of macroinformatics, symbiotic with the environment. It is described variously as institutional recognition of information as a resource, and as the circumstances that affect the functions that a system is expected to perform. The context encompasses the user, so information needs of STI system users should be taken into account. If this ‘contextual level’ is interpreted, then we would expect to see attempts by managers to value either qualitatively or quantitatively the resources being managed, as well as to plan services to accommodate functionality improvement derived from research and development. Further, the services should be managed to address user needs through some formal analytical process. Examining each of these in turn:
Information as a resource There is a lack of evidence that information has been treated as a resource (in the sense of putting a monetary value on it as a product), by the organisations Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 7.1: IJIM Frameworks)
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that have created the STI services. There has however, been an appreciation of the costs of maintaining such services. For example Tellis (1981) provided a variety of details of costing for the AESIS database production. He published direct costs of management and support services (processing and production), materials and salaries. He used these along with amortisation estimates of development costs to infer a unit cost figure for processing of metadata records. However, the figures
do not put a value on the accumulated information. The database vendors were more forthcoming with information on costs of maintaining databases. For example Klingender was associated with AUSINET, which for a time provided the platform of several of the databases. He considered ways in which public information should be delivered over a private network, while justifying the unpopular decision to drop certain low use databases from his network (Klingender, 1981). He was seeking more certainty to enable the private sector to generate the profits to make service viable, such as government commitment not to establish similar networks, fixed term exclusive contracts, and release from obligation to mount databases.
Circumstances affecting functionality All of the STI services have had to accommodate functionality change over time. This may have been due to technological change as exemplified above. It may also have been due to institutional policy change in areas like platform and software support, or of scope and coverage. Although all except one of the STI service databases are now available through one vendor, Informit (2006), produced by RMIT Publishing they have previously been migrated across platforms with different capacity and information retrieval functionality. In Australia these platforms included:
•
AUSINET which from 1978 used the computing facilities at what was then ACI Computer Services (later Ferntree) at Clayton in Victoria, with initial participants using leased line services. There was stress on the development of uniquely Australian material. AUSINET functioned with IBM STAIRS software which facilitated databases structured with paragraphs (text search
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facilities such as Boolean and proximity), and formatted fields (coded data permitting relational operations, typically used to refine a search); sorting of search results and saving of search statements for re-use was possible. •
CSIRO’s AUSTRALIS which was initiated in 1987 to enable consumer access to scientific databases reticulated through CSIRO’s telecommunications network CSIRONET, or via the telephone service. Databases were moved from it when Informit went online in 1998. Retrieval software was also IBM STAIRS.
•
The NLA’s OZLINE which ran from 1987 to 1998 with both a STAIRS, and alternative SOFI public user interface.
Coverage and scope of the services had to be established initially and may then have been varied over time. For example in the case of AMI, it commenced in 1983 following discussion by the Life Sciences Consultative Committee which was responsible for the administration of Medline. NLA committed funding for indexing and data entry for the first 7,000 items which were complementary to the Australian Medline input that had been created in the USA since the 1960s.
User information needs Most of the services were commenced without formal detailed user needs analysis. In a number of cases, because locally built databases were created to complement existing international equivalents, user needs were seen simply as an extension to existing services in order to bolster local content. For example, in the case of AMI, the inclusive coverage of health materials complementary to the existing Medline database was thought to address anticipated user requirements, given the flexible retrieval software. Similarly judgments about ARRB content were based upon the already defined scope of IRRD and influenced by requirements of existing library users. However, the Australian Road Research in Progress (ARRP) that was built concurrently by ARRB gave valuable insights into information requirements of users.
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In the case of AESIS there was a significant survey of anticipated user needs (Dixon & Tellis, 1972). This sought information on individual user needs within surveyed organisations. However the resulting document confined itself to reporting institutional coverage and current information provision along with recommendations concerning an agency to handle an STI service.
Information systems Rowley, and later Frishammer (2002) point out that the entire framework under discussion may be considered as an information system. However, this present analysis follows Rowley’s initial proposition that the system is generally thought of in terms of the technological capability for supporting the process. Therefore the information managers are seen to be the systems analysts and designers. Systems analysis and design is therefore taken into account. However, although Rowley does not mention system evaluation in its own right, it is included here and differentiated as an aspect of information systems that requires separate consideration.
Systems analysis and design Initial development of services was undertaken prior to the online era. Development of user interfaces was not an issue. Output requirements for batch processes of what was then termed SDI services were developed for intermediaries rather than end users. CSIRO developed a batch current awareness search facility for databases. For its time it had advanced search functionality notable for providing for a combination of Boolean and weighted search logic and truncation. It was adaptable to locally produced databases such as ABOA (a precursor of AANRO). The databases dealing solely with Australian content were begun after the commencement of the online era. Generally they were created and searched using existing software that had been developed generically to deal with a range of databases (as Informit does now). IBM’s STAIRS retrieval software was most prominent in this respect. There was limited development of it to
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accommodate the specifics of STI services. One mechanism for initiating this was the AUSINET User’s Committee. For example it sought database structuring to permit merged postings across databases. The AUSINET implementation of this was CROS – after ‘cross-searching’ the index of databases, one could then move to the database of choice.
Evaluation Evaluation plays a significant part in information management, but it has not been given any prominence by Rowley. It seems reasonable that it should play a significant part in both information systems and information retrieval level at least, and it is included here particularly to address system performance analysis. For the STI services of the case study, there are many aspects of information management for which performance evaluation could take place. These include assessment of the quantity of coverage and throughput of records, interface evaluation, system online availability, and range of use by the market. For information retrieval they may include indexing consistency and search performance. While some analysis has been carried out on an ongoing basis by the different services, for example for internal annual reporting purposes, there has not been much formal evaluation conducted for public scrutiny. An exception is performance evaluation undertaken on AESIS that included the use of an evaluative framework set up in a study of the Georef database (Tellis, 1986). This was used to evaluate such things as coverage by subject and form of material; currency; incidences of duplicate records; indexing; and training programs. There was also examination of performance in terms of cost effectiveness and benefit. Evaluation includes determination of quality. It would normally be accompanied by procedures for maintaining information quality, such as in the case of STI services, the application of controlled vocabularies. Thesauri are indeed used by each of the services in the study. However data are not
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maintained regarding consistency of application of terms, utilisation of uncontrolled keywords, or utilisation of vocabularies for searching.
Information retrieval Information retrieval is conceived as the part played by individuals in the information management process. It can therefore be undertaken by end users of information, or by those who are concerned with getting the information to the end users. As information managers, these may be intermediaries such as database designers, interface designers, and indexers. As identified in the case studies, these may be regarded as those responsible for the processes of information selection, design, organisation, and retrieval.
Information selection Each of the STI services has operational procedures for selection of material. In some cases, such as with AANRO there is a contextual setting using a formal document that may be used for guidance. When the AANRO databases were combined into one, a document was produced to provide detailed guidelines on selection of material including differentiation by form and level of description (collective and item level) (Quinn, 2004). The ANSTI database includes material that is selected according to detailed documents developed at the international level by the International Nuclear Information System. The national database is created from material that is transferred back from the INIS international database following inclusion there. The ATRI database is also linked with an international service, namely the ITRD. In this case the local database is created first and includes local material of wider scope than the database on which it is modelled. About 30-40% of material annually is submitted to the international equivalent. AusGeoref in its current form is created nationally but subsumed within the international Georef database. It may be searched as a subset of the database but does not exist independently.
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The health material included in AMI is substantially wider in scope than that which is also provided as the Australian Medline component. Initially there was a conscious policy of complementing rather than replicating any of the Medline material. However in recent years material from the Australian component of Medline has also been included in AMI. ENGINE is not linked with an international service. It mainly covers material published by Engineers Australia.
Information design Many of the services were developed initially with internal structuring and formatting, and were then reformatted for availability through online service vendors mentioned earlier: AUSINET in the 1970s, CSIRO’s AUSTRALIS facility and then the NLA’s OZLINE facility. In 1998, RMIT Publishing’s Informit facility was commissioned and many Australian databases are now aggregated for delivery through it, including all of the STI databases in the case study except for AusGeoref. Access to the databases is provided through a common interface, but the databases each retain their own data elements. Standard metadata elements for description and indexing, along with links to full text or websites where appropriate are provided for all databases. They are complemented with specialised metadata such as sponsorship elements in the case of ENGINE and AANRO (which appears on Informit as ANR-I), and geographic data in ATRI. In its earlier manifestation as AESIS, the earth sciences database had a number of specialised data elements such as map references. Its structure and presentation is now as per Georef. AANRO though appearing through Informit as ANR-I is also freely available online through aanro.net (Infoscan Pty Ltd, 2006). The site is termed a knowledge base and provides a coherent integration of references to documents, references to ongoing and completed research projects, and a gateway to sites through search interfaces that include a graphic interface based upon mapped regions of Australia.
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Information organisation Indexing and classification is undertaken for each of the STI services. In cases such as for Engine and ANSTI, this has been undertaken in-house by librarians or information officers Contract indexing is also undertaken, for example on a piecework basis for AMI. Each of the services uses a controlled vocabulary based upon an international thesaurus. For example ANSTI uses the INIS Thesaurus and AMI uses MeSH. Although AusGeoref now works within the Georef framework, when in its former manifestation of AESIS, a thesaurus developed in Australia was used for the database. Some of the databases also use identifiers for further uncontrolled subject description.
ANSTI additionally makes use of INIS
category codes.
Information retrieval Search intermediaries continue to provide information retrieval for end users through the subscription-based Informit. However, much information retrieval is undertaken by end users who use the databases that have been created on internal networks at the creating institutions, or through Informit, which provides access to all databases except AusGeoref, or in the case of AusGeoref as a subset search directly from Georef. AANRO is alternatively available freely and directly from a web portal as part of a knowledge base that also includes links to non-bibliographic material. This is based upon the principle that end users will search it directly from the web, but that intermediaries will use the more advanced search features available through its Informit manifestation.
Discussion A paper of this constrained length provides limited opportunity for describing the STI services as outlined. However its objective has been principally to see how examples from this detail may exemplify the Rowley framework. Rather than comprehensive description, selected examples have been provided.
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It has been possible to explain STI service provision in terms of Rowley’s framework, so it can be said that information management is applicable in the situation under consideration, even if it is not always being undertaken to the extent that participants might wish. Still, there are ways in which the framework might be refined to provide further illustrative capacity for information management. It would appear to be preferable to identify the information processing constituents as ‘assemblies’ (or a similar term), rather than ‘information processors’ as they are now identified (Rowley, 1998). All of the information processors are individuals (as are all the information managers), but they are functioning with different levels of aggregation within the recognized levels. So while the information processing happens with different degrees of aggregation, the processors in each case are individuals, who may be contributing professionally as information managers, or alternatively participating at a lay level. ‘Information retrieval’ may be a misleading rubric to use for those operations inclusive of wider operations than retrieval itself. It is explained as including a range of information organisation procedures (such as indexing) that facilitate retrieval. It is also exemplified by Rowley (1998, p. 364) as including information selection by individuals with particular information needs. It should also include selection undertaken by information mangers as intermediaries. In the case of STI services, this includes making decisions about scope of inclusion and about which material to choose within the scoping policy. A more comprehensive term such as ‘information processes’ may be appropriate. Given this, it would remain necessary to differentiate it from the information technology procedures, supporting the ‘information systems’ rubric as defined. Evaluation is a significant element of information management that has not been emphasised by Rowley, perhaps because it is seen as happening at each level of the proposed framework. For the cases under investigation it has been included under information systems. Yet in the case of STI services it might well have been exemplified under information retrieval as well. It would seem appropriate to find a way to make it explicit. Differentiation of environment and contextual levels by Rowley seems to have been made with a view to separating consideration of information management
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strategy and administration within organisations from those influences that come to a business from outside. This may be useful for institutions that are primarily concerned with creation and maintenance of internal information resources. Yet for the many institutions continually participating in business-to-business interaction or subject to government-to-business policy influence, it is difficult to separate environment from context, and the two levels may reasonably be conflated for the purposes of the framework. The explanatory power might be increased if the levels were further explained in terms of domains of interest (Diener, 1992; Middleton, 2002). Thus Rowley’s 4 levels may be contrasted with the 3 domains that are used to explain information management: operational, analytical, and strategic. The operational domain includes carrying out the processes of information management; the analytical domain includes determining the needs of information users, the value of information, and the performance of information processes; the strategic domain includes planning and contextualisation within policy agendas.
Conclusion The framework proposed by Rowley may be applied to the case of provision of STI services as an example of information management. Nonetheless, the framework would benefit from further elaboration and modification to take account of explanation of domains of information management. Such adaptation would provide the framework with more universal explanatory power. Adaptation could include the following:
•
Removal of the differentiation between environment and context. In situations where enterprises and their systems have significant interaction with the wider community and other enterprises, separating these into different levels is as difficult as separating the parts of a jellyfish. They might reasonably be combined as an administration level that is concerned with the strategic domain of information management.
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•
The information systems and information retrieval levels could each be elaborated in terms of an analytical and an operational domain. In the case of information systems, the analytical domain would be concerned with determination of information seeking behaviours of interest groups, carrying out requirements analysis for systems, and evaluating the performance of systems. The operational domain would be concerned with the development and maintenance of such systems and training in their use. In the case of information retrieval, the analytical domain would be about the determination of value of information, the identification of extent and scope of information repositories, and the evaluation of how effectively the information is organised in and retrieved from such repositories. The operational domain would be concerned with processes including metadata provision, vocabulary control, search strategy development, maintenance of business intelligence profiles, and training in the application of these processes.
•
The information retrieval level could be better named as an information processes level. As presently explained by Rowley it concerned the actions procedures and methods for recovering information from stored data. As these processes include the preparation of the stored data by information managers, a broader term would be more expressive of what is happening.
Further interpretation of the parts played by information managers and information processors is necessary. Managers are themselves processors, and users may play a part in each of Rowley’s information processor levels, not just the retrieval level. It may be preferable to speak in terms of information processing levels each of which involves individuals, either as information managers or as users, but differentiated by different degrees of assembly.
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Acknowledgements Thanks to members of the QUILT group in the Information Use Research Program at QUT for constructive comments on this work.
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Chapter 8: Information management in library context 8.1.
Book chapter: IM discipline and library development Charles Sturt University’s Centre for Information Studies has commissioned a book
that investigates developments in library and information studies. I was invited to write a chapter that deliberates information management development in this context, and took the opportunity to use the defined disciplinary scope of information management in order to contrast it with information management applied in the library context. The submission is presently completed first review:
Middleton, M. (in press) Beyond the corporate library: information management in organisations. In S Ferguson (Ed.), Libraries in the twenty-first century:
Charting future developments in library and information services.
The main thrust of the paper is to show with examples, how information management in the wider corporate context may be differentiated from the way that it is practised in the library environment.
Contribution to research The prior research involved consideration of information management without direct reference to the library context, except where in the case studies it provided a support role for the STI services. However, it was established at the outset that librarianship is one of the principal precursors of information management. This paper addresses contemporary librarianship and analyses its role relative to information management as comprehended through findings in the prior disciplinary studies. It therefore assists with interpretation of information management using a broader perspective, and clarifying its practicality with respect to information acquisition, information organisation, current awareness, information resource evaluation and quality control, requirements analysis, preservation and information policy in contexts other than libraries.
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CHAPTER 13 Beyond the corporate library: information management in organisations Michael Middleton
Introduction This chapter examines information management beyond the library environment. Therefore, for a variety of alternative information environments, it is an investigation undertaken critically, of information management principles and applications. The library has always been a primary cultural institution for managing information. However, librarians didn’t make regular use of the phrase ‘information management’ until the mid 1970s. This was after it had achieved currency outside the library environment, a significant factor being that the US government had initiated a Commission of Federal Paperwork (US Commission on Federal Paperwork, 1977). The Commission extended its interest beyond its primary focus of paperwork reduction, and used the term ‘information resource management’ as an expression meaning the planning and controlling of information requirements in general. Some information professionals had at the same time been using ‘information management’ with approximately the same meaning. This has led to ongoing academic and professional debate about whether ‘resource’ needs to be part of the phrase. Although ‘resource’ remains prominent in such professional tags as the Information Resources Management Association (IRMA), in recent years ‘information management’ seems to have become the preferred term. Even so, its definition remains tenuous. A difficulty is that both ‘information’ and ‘management’ have nuances influenced by context, discipline and application. Information may be understood as intermediate in a continuum between data (symbols arranged for interpretation) and knowledge (information that has been absorbed and comprehended). However many users of the word do not differentiate
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data, information or knowledge. Management too, is understood in different ways. It may have an operational connotation (organisation of artefacts), a personnel connotation (supervision of people), or a development connotation (strategic planning). Correspondingly, many users of the term management, make no distinction between the different applications of management. So ‘information management’ taken together may be understood as any combination of these interpretations. A more detailed discussion of terminology appears in Wilson (2003), and there is an extended explanation of application in Middleton (2002). Roberts (1996) saw that there was much to be gained from a pooled view and understanding of the library and information management settings. Further, having proposed a set of conceptual principles for information management he mapped them against consolidated principles for librarianship. He found that information management had little to offer in terms of a surpassing paradigm. In this respect the analysis following below respects his approach by itemising elements that are generally well accepted in the library field, but exploring them in a wider context. Other than IRMA, many professional associations lay claim to information management. Their emphasis depends upon different points of reference. For example Aslib (2006) which styles itself ‘the Association for Information Management’ has a foundation in special libraries and information centres. It is oriented towards dealing with information as a resource. By way of contrast, the Society for Information Management (SIM, 2006) encourages a membership of academics, consultants, professional leaders and managers in the information systems area. There are other professionals associations that also see information management as being within their purview. They include those whose centre of attention has been records, document or image management. They now cast their net in a wider context. This may well include knowledge management which is sometimes confused with, sometimes differentiated from, information management.
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If we elaborate upon information management within its various interpretations, it can be seen that it involves many elements that are familiar to libraries, but which may be expanded beyond the library environment:
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Information acquisition, not only for purchase of and subscription to material coming into repositories, but also for generation of information within organisations through processes such as content management.
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Information organisation, not only by cataloguing and classification of materials in a repository, but also by use of digital metadata for information resources that may be records, databases, websites or other digital media.
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Current awareness, by reporting not only material incoming to collections, but through provision of environmental scanning using tools such as database posting, portals, and blogs to repackage and re-present.
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Resource evaluation, by determining not just the economic and intellectual worth of material in library collections, but through audit of enterprise-wide information sources.
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Information quality control, not simply through standards for cataloguing and maintenance of authority files, but also by means of data dictionaries, data sampling metrics and other means of database validation.
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Requirements analysis, not just through determination of sources that meet individual user needs, but through explanation of processes by which they use information so that system interfaces may be created.
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Preservation, not only of physical collections, but through development and application of digital preservation and security procedures.
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Policy, not confined to such repository matters as collection and use policy, but more broadly applied to corporate information policy.
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Thus there is an emphasis on information more so than the documents that carry it. However, there is also a convergence between information management practised within and without the library environment. As established libraries have moved into the digital environment, librarians have become less concerned with collection, more concerned with provision; less concerned with form, more concerned with content; less concerned with comprehensiveness, more with pertinence and presentation. Each of these concerns is essentially an extension of what librarians have been doing applied within a broader framework, and often without reference to a collection in the traditional sense. This is recognised at the preparatory level in the library profession where many current information studies courses cater for this extended context. The following sections elaborate upon each of the information elements introduced above and emphasise their application outside the library domain, but illustrate their relevance to that domain.
Information acquisition Libraries in their capacity as repositories have long been in the business of acquiring documents. In recent years their construal of what is a document has been extended to cover all forms of media including digital media. In harmony with the way digital media are available, there has been a move from ownership to access. Information management within libraries now includes a significant element of attention to subscriptions and access mechanisms such as consortial arrangements for utilisation of digital aggregations. Libraries have generally been concerned with acquisition of, or access to information produced outside their organisation. Usually it is published information, although differentiation between what is published and unpublished is now a problematic distinction. It used to be that publishing of physical documents leading to printing was a process accompanied by review, editorial and presentation procedures each carried out
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by specialists, and meant to refine the content of the original authorship prior to marketing and distribution. This of course still happens, and has in numerous cases been transferred to the digital environment. Nevertheless the advent firstly of desktop publishing making use of software within the means of individuals, and then the web with its straightforward mark-up language has given a new understanding to publishing. The less stringent meaning of ‘to bring to public attention’ can be applied in the digital environment. Vanity publishing is given a new lease of life. Along with personal publishing autonomy, corporate publishing has also become easier to achieve, and the distinction between documents internal and external to businesses has diminished. Information management has promoted the value of the corporate memory embodied in the documents produced by a business, many of which have a life that is principally internal to the organisation. These documents may be in the form of reports, forms and correspondence aggregated in files that record fiscal, policy, historical, legal or research aspects of the business. Organisation of these documents for internal use is undertaken using recordkeeping principles. As enterprises convert to digital document production, they have sought ways of associating document management and recordkeeping. They continue to seek ways of balancing the production of internal and public information, so that for instance, fragments of internal documents may readily be incorporated within published documents for marketing purposes. A development that supports such acquisition and dissemination of corporate information is the concept of the content management system (CMS). The CMS has stemmed from use of intranets to manage corporate information. Software support for a CMS provides a mechanism for producing internal information and making available via the internet anything that an enterprise also wishes to make external – in other words, publish.
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As defined by J. Robertson (2003) a CMS supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate information. A successful CMS will be able to support business objectives for information management that include creation and controlled distribution of corporate information such as that dealing with policy directives, lessons learned, recordkeeping and training. This may be achieved most effectively via interfaces to internal databases, so that information acquisition is database driven. A CMS is sometimes characterised as having content creation, content assembly and content management components (Asprey & Middleton, 2003). Content creation is concerned with the authoring process. Software support for it should include:
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Capability of undertaking authoring without reference to underlying markup.
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Templates and style sheets that separate content and presentation.
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Metadata creation.
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Interactive help utilities that guide users through complex tasks (wizards).
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Controlling group use of individual documents as they are being developed using check in/check out facilities.
Content assembly is concerned with adjuncts to creation that minimise data duplication and support quality control. Software support includes:
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Integrated authoring environment for utilisation and incorporation of digital data representing image, sound or text from outside sources.
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Inclusion of multiple contributions through devices like bulletin boards.
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Database interfaces that provide for a single source of re-usable content.
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Maintaining links despite restructuring and presentation in different contexts.
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Authority management so that there are standard lists of names and subjects that may be utilised within documents.
Content management is concerned, like document management systems, with a system that ensures effective process control. Software support includes:
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A repository that locks pages in use and provides for utilisation of fragments of documents.
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Versioning that supports sole use of a current version (integrity), along with control for recovery and accountability.
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Security through access levels and audit trails.
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Workflow support through association with other business systems within a framework that is adaptable to change in organisational processes.
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Management reporting of utilisation and performance.
The term digital assets management (DAM) may be used as an alternative to CMS. This is when there is an emphasis on valuing of the information resources that have been created, rather than the creation of them. So DAM is particularly associated with the content assembly and content management points listed above. Libraries themselves employ content management in conjunction with their portals, and many applications have been described (Seadle, 2006), but from an
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information management viewpoint, CMS have much wider application that the library environment. An example of CMS deployment at an Australian university is described in some detail by Williams, Boulton, and Bartosiewicz (2003). They discuss its design and implementation at RMIT and give illustrations of downloadable templates, metadata forms, and screens from the document authoring and publishing environment. They also undertake initial evaluations of use. An example of the association between recordkeeping and CMS is described by Sprehe (2005). He emphasises the need for recordkeeping to support compliance requirements of legislation. Then he goes on to outline three brief case studies of US government agencies in which electronic recordkeeping has been enhanced through alignment with content management and portal management. Improved support is provided for case file management, electronic publishing, financial management, forms management and executive decision making. CMS is naturally of interest to organisations that are rich in content such as publishers and broadcast media, who want the ‘essence’ of their content to be produced and disseminated through multiple outlets. Mauthe & Thomas (2004) provide examples of application in media environments.
Information organisation Organisation of information continues to be a major preoccupation of information professionals. The library profession showed the way to information organisation through internationally accepted cataloguing standards, and a relatively limited number of classification schemes established to cover the whole field of knowledge. Libraries have a legacy of doing this for physical documents. Further, they have adapted their metadata manuals to deal with digital document description – for example cataloguing rules for machine readable formats and web documents. In this way, MARC, the commonly used library metadata format is able to accommodate descriptions of digital media.
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Despite this, the digital environment has encouraged a great number of alternative approaches to information description, particularly for databases. These range from specialised metadata schemes to specialised taxonomies to cover the domains of subject matter. Any database definition for an in-house database is effectively a metadata scheme. It is of interest to information management when the metadata must be shared among different applications. This is almost inevitable as companies try to integrate internal systems through enterprise wide applications, share with other businesses for e-commerce, or establish data warehouses that share the same data that may be known in different parts of a company by different names. Standardised approaches to naming and defining data across databases are aimed for in data dictionaries (or what the International Standards Organisation calls an Information Resource Dictionary System framework). Utilisation of these provides an information manager with a tool for information quality maintenance, and a mechanism for controlling information sharing within an organisation. It also formalises information requirements analysis and specification. Such dictionaries are now also being used among organisations, notably in the health field, to achieve agreed definitions. An example is the data dictionary published, with supplements by the AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2003). Between organisations, information sharing is also facilitated by metadata standards. Whereas the library environment essentially has the one scheme, MARC (albeit with variations) for sharing bibliographic data, there are many other schemes used in different environments, for example:
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EDIFACT, an international electronic data interchange standard developed under the auspices of the United Nations for administration, commerce and transport; the scheme and syntax are documented by ISO (International Standards Organisation, 2002).
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A variety of geospatial metadata sets that facilitate organisation and sharing of mapping information, such as those of the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee; there is an international standard ISO 19115 of relevance, and there are implementations such as that adopted in Australasia (ANZLIC, 2001).
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AGLS, the Australian Government Locator Service (Standards Australia, 2002) designed to provided a limited set of metadata for describing government websites, based on an extension of another metadata scheme, Dublin Core.
The focus of both data dictionaries and metadata schemes is the description of the different elements of an agent that carries information. A database may be such an agent irrespective of the digital medium on which it is resident. An agent may also be any document in the broad sense of an artefact holding information. If the elements of an agent such as a compact disk include its title, creator and playing time, then a data dictionary controls the format of each of these elements. MARC might reasonably be used as a contribution to a data dictionary in a non-library environment. An extract from the AGLS metadata element set reference description is shown in Table 13.1. Such a reference set may be used as a standard to form the basis of internal data dictionaries created by different institutions, and then used to share data between institutions in a common format. In the example, a single element, in this case DATE is used. Dictionaries are also structured to call upon other metadata that describes the subject content of the agents that carry the information. If the compact disk contained a documentary film, then the subject content might draw upon a classification scheme for documentaries. MARC has data elements set aside to accommodate instances from sets of subject headings, and classification schemes. Similarly, schemes such as AGLS provide for use of a range of taxonomies and schemes.
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Table 13.1.
Extract from AGLS reference description (National Archives of Australia, 2002); reproduced with permission of NAA.
Element Name: DATE Label:
Date
Definition:
A date of an event in the lifecycle of the resource.
Obligation:
Mandatory
Comment:
Typically, Date will be associated with the creation or availability of the resource. Recommended best practice for encoding the date value is defined in a profile of ISO 8601 [W3CDTF] and follows the YYYY-MMDD format.
Qualifiers Qualifier Name:
created
Label:
Created
Qualifier Type:
element refinement
Definition:
Creation date of the resource.
Qualifier Name:
modified
Label:
Modified
Qualifier Type:
element refinement
Definition:
Modification date of the resource.
Qualifier Name:
valid
Label:
Valid
Qualifier Type:
element refinement
Definition:
A date (often a range) of validity of a resource.
Comment:
Typically, a date the resource becomes valid or ceases to be valid, or the date range for which the resource is valid.
Qualifier Name:
issued
Label:
Issued
Qualifier Type:
element refinement
Definition:
A date on which the resource was made formally available in its current form.
Many classifications, thesauri and comparable controlled vocabularies have been established for description of specialised material. Some examples are:
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COFOG: Classification Of the Functions Of Government, one of many schemes maintained by the UN, in this case to categorise expenditure
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according to purpose; it is part of their international family of economic and social classifications (United Nations, 2002). •
ICONCLASS (2005), an iconographic classification system developed from the work of van de Waal at the University of Leiden; it is a collection of ready-made definitions of objects, persons, events, situations and abstract ideas that can be the subject of a work of art.
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AGIFT, a three-level hierarchical vocabulary that describes the business functions carried out across Commonwealth, State and local governments in Australia (National Archives of Australia, 2005).
These vocabularies are published for use by allcomers. They may be contrasted with the many examples of in-house database definitions and taxonomies that are particular to databases in businesses and research institutions. The in-house vocabularies may in a way be map of an organisation’s intellectual assets. They represent enterprise knowledge. However, even in such cases there is a growing need to formalise and share description of structures for others to use between businesses or for e-research. An analysis of three in-house examples was undertaken by (Kremer, Kolbe, & Brenner, 2005). These were the introduction of a glossary for an insurance company; setting up a corporate taxonomy at an international professional services firm; and combining a glossary and taxonomy for document classification and retrieval at an educational institution. From their findings they proposed a procedural model for terminology management that combines glossary and taxonomy use. The taxonomies that are referred to above are typically controlled vocabularies where objects are described together with relationships such as subsumption (for example ‘a plum is-a fruit’) or meronymy (‘a plum skin is part-of a plum’). However, they are unlikely to comprise a complete formal ontology where for a domain of interest, knowledge is represented in terms of concepts, their characteristics and all of
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the relations between them. Thus a cooking ontology would also need relationship attributes such as grown-in to show origin of the plum or mixed-with for use in recipes. It is the development of such formal ontologies that will help to underpin the aspirations of the so-called semantic web in which software can be developed better to interrelate search strategies and documents. Another aspect of information organisation concerns the way that websites are organised. This is called information architecture (Rosenfeld & Morville, 2002), although the terminology is also be applied more widely to the design and development of many other information products and systems. In the case of the web it involves the design and coordination of interfaces that draws upon databases, metadata, content management and presentation. Information organisation for the information manager therefore involves a judicious combination of metadata (which requires constant attention behind the scenes), and presentation, which is the scene.
Current awareness Provision of current awareness services by libraries pre-dates libraries’ use of computer systems. When the first text-based retrieval systems were developed in the 1960s as a by product of the publishing process, an initial application was selective dissemination of information (SDI). Librarians acted as intermediaries (and still do) by developing profiles (search term formulations) for their patrons. System development has seen an emphasis on patrons (often now clumsily termed ‘end users’), setting up their own profiles. Many database services facilitate this self-management through fairly straightforward procedures. However many end users are not in a position to put the time and understanding into developing their profile. They may therefore profitably turn to information professionals for profile maintenance. The support may come from librarians, consultants, or information officers working independently of any library.
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SDI depends upon extraction from databases of new incoming material. It has the advantage of reliability, normally obtained through the controlled description of material that has been through editorial and reviewing processes. However, users may be prepared to reduce reliability in favour of immediacy and subjectivity. For this reason, the blog (short for weblog: web page containing brief, chronologically presented items of information) has become a popular current awareness device. They are often ephemeral, but when sustained, blogs, many of which are maintained by individuals, may be useful combinations of a diary, discussion, current references, news, book reviews, images, and opinion and links on specialist topic areas, thereby achieving ‘guru’ status for the blog maintainer . Could this be the information manager as guru? As pointed out by Clyde (2004) the best blogs are authoritative sources of current information and opinion related to their topic. They may be created by subject specialists, and they may well include contributions from other specialists. Examples of specialist blogs are UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (Wood, 2006) maintained by an academic, and Internet Legal Research Weekly’s Inter alia (2006). Blogs are also obvious tools for libraries and there are many cases where institutions or individuals are now utilising them. The web portal is more formal approach than the blog. It usually works with the combined resources of an institution, and likely to combine current awareness with access to database and archives. Libraries often play a lead or support role in such endeavours, for example Australia dancing (National Library of Australia, nd.). Environmental scanning is a label that is sometimes applied to current awareness. In some cases libraries have appropriated it to refer to their SDI services. However, in an information management sense, it is generally more about evaluation and interpretation of the information as well. It is the process by which an organisation extracts information about the general societal, technological, economic and political environment in which it operates, and combines this information with business intelligence about its competitors in order to assist its own strategic planning. Disengagement with the material that is scanned (in the sense of a library leaving a patron to do the interpretation of retrieved material) does not apply. There must be analysis and use of the information within the strategic planning framework of
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the organisation. This may be undertaken by a special unit in an enterprise, or by an organisational strategy that requires sections of a company to undertake environmental scanning as part of their duties. Choo (2002) has interpreted the framework of environmental scanning to consider organisations as open systems interacting with the environment. He sees these enterprises as ‘intelligent’: that is, they are learning organisations that set objectives and improve competitive position, consciously creating, acquiring, organising, and using knowledge to support their direction. Thus a learning organisation operates by carrying out appropriate strategies and responses within a continuing cycle of activities that involve sensing the environment, perceiving change, and interpreting the significance of the change. The business literature is replete with many characterisations of how environmental scanning may take place, In Choo’s case, he opts for four modes: undirected viewing, conditioned viewing, enacting, and searching. These represent progressively greater levels of engagement with scanning. There are many documented case studies of scanning application. An example in which enterprises were analysed to see how scanning influenced strategic decision making was reported by Frishammar (2003). He studied four medium-sized companies listed on the Swedish stock exchange with respect to specific strategic decisions. The companies were in the heavy vehicle, information logistics, environmentally friendly product development, and biotechnology sectors. Unsurprisingly, all were found to employ information in strategic decision making. Yet there was varying reliance on ‘hard’ (numerical, quantitative), and ‘soft’ (qualitative, discursive, visions, ideas, cognitive structures) information. The combination of soft and hard information requirement seemed to vary over time in each enterprise. Most respondents to his survey started out with soft information, then moved to hard information as a process continued. The picture provided by respondents was that soft information served as a basis for interpreting which hard information is relevant and which is not. At that stage hard information became more important, leading to the application of analytical methods for studying figures. After this however, many respondents returned to soft information. A sentiment of many of the respondents was that it was impossible to
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‘count all the way’. At the time when the actual decision (strategic choice) was taken, intuition and cognitive structures again came into play (Frishammar, p. 321). In each case companies tended to rely heavily on solicited information. Unsolicited information was less frequently used, although its importance was still recognised. In all companies, information classified as unsolicited was more undirected than directed (that is, the source being intentional or purposeful in information provision). Two of the companies ranked their customers as the most important source of information, and the three highest ranked sources in both companies were personal sources. The data show a pattern for three of the four companies where internal sources of information were preferred over external ones. Current awareness is a significant aspect of information management that supports strategic decision making. It involves a combination of obtaining information from a range of structured and unstructured sources, interpreting the information, and converting it to corporate knowledge in relation to the business’s objectives.
Resource evaluation Determining the extent and value of library collections is part of the collection management process. Collection assessment has been quantified in the past with such tools as Conspectus, which was structured to provide overviews of strengths, weaknesses and directions of academic collection levels. On the other hand, information resource evaluation in an information management context sees a library collection as just one of the information resources for the whole enterprise. Establishing the extent and effectiveness of an enterprise’s information resources is a fundamental aspect of information management requirements in order to appreciate how the information resources support the mission and objectives of the organisation.
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Simply identifying and categorising the range of information resources can be problematic. However the process may be assisted by tools such as the Harvard Information Business Map (Oettinger, McLaughlin, & Birinyi, 1999). This schematic is a two-dimensional representation of information resources that has its horizontal axis plotted from form to substance (with increasing value added), and its vertical axis plotted from product to service. Information resources such as paper, PABXs, financial services, or databases are then positioned on the map. Such identification of resources may be extended by determining the extent of information that there is, who uses it, which processes it supports, and how well the processes are supported. In the form of an audit, this should help to identify discrepancies, as well as those of the resources that may be better applied or funded, and those that may be unnecessary. Resource evaluation that distinguishes information resources as sources, systems and services is detailed in the seminal work by Burk and Horton (1988). They used an approach called ‘Infomap’ and suggested various ways of assessing resources, but ultimately these are grouped under determinations of the importance and the effectiveness of each resource. Infomap also takes into account a third factor: the importance to an organisation of the activities that are supported by each of the information resources. A formula is produced to combine the three elements. Their method may be criticised for providing an unsubstantiated formulaic approach that leads to ratings that are apparently quantitative, though based upon many subjective impressions. It also has the major drawbacks of the time and resources required to obtain and reconcile all those impressions about resources. However, the method recognises the importance of accounting for policy influences (see later section on information policy), and together with a software instrument for capturing data, it caters for managers who like to be able to obtain pictorial overviews of usefulness. More recently Henczel (2000) describes a seven stage information audit model which specifically excludes computer systems on the assumption that a systems audit will follow and complement an information audit. She is at pains to differentiate information needs analysis from an audit. The latter she sees as identifying not only
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resources and services, but also how and by whom they are used. Presumably because she is excluding computer systems, she does not make any association between needs analysis and requirements analysis, a term commonly used for helping to design systems, which is described in the later section on requirements analysis. Like Burk and Horton, Henczel emphasises the alignment of the audit process with organisational goals, and she sees the process as a continuum that continues to modify those goals. In each case the writers exemplify their procedures with case studies. Burk and Horton provide a detailed analysis of a resources company so they are able to provide many examples of sources such as remote sensing data or correspondence files, services such as couriers or information locating, and systems such as drafting/graphics or contracts process control, all assessed within the framework of the activities that they support. Henczel’s case studies are less detailed, but they explain the information gathering methods and purpose. For example in the case of an Australian government department (Henczel, 2000, p. 212), the assessment is described as being within the framework of a broader knowledge management strategy. It addresses issues relating to governance, electronic recordkeeping and document management, information access and retrieval, and information management tools and infrastructure. As is typical within the management area, there are variations on the auditing process that help to blur just what is being audited (Middleton, 2002, p.360). An audit may emphasise either the information flow or the information value. In the case of information flow, it may be called a communication audit, and focus on the short interactions of managerial work, many of which are oral. Therefore the ways in which flows are compartmentalised may be addressed along with appropriateness, clarity, and efficiency. Information value audits are more concerned with information systems processing activities, and the integrity and security of these. A useful definition that encompasses the above variations is given by G. Robertson (1997) as ‘systematic examination of information use, resources and flows, with verification by reference to both people and existing documents in order to establish and monitor the extent to which they are contributing to an organisation’s objectives’.
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When there is an attempt to ascertain information value as part of an audit, a number of ways have been employed to attempt to quantify value. Two of these are risk analysis and information attribute assessment. Risk analysis tries to quantify information assets in terms of threats and safeguards associated with them. It includes trying to answer the questions of what it might cost an enterprise if some of its information is stolen, lost, insidiously modified, or even simply viewed by an uninvited party. For example, what is the likelihood of a competitor gaining access to research data leading to a patent application, and what financial affect might this have on the corporation? Algorithms have been developed that normalise and sum all such identifiable risks including those pertaining to disasters such as sabotage, in order to establish some insurance value with respect to information. Alternatively, Oppenheim, Stenson, and Wilson (2003) adopted a repertory grid technique to ask managers about numerous attributes of nominated information assets. The assets were identified as information about each of: business processes, customer, product, organisation, management, personnel, suppliers, accountability, and competitors. Examples of information attributes that were assessed included ‘changes made to information’ (on a scale from slow to quick), and ‘level of control of information’ (scaled from low to high). By averaging ratings given for these and seventeen other attributes they developed a metric that gave an indication of corporate information value. Determining information value in a quantitative way is a problematical area, but to the extent that value can be estimated, it forms a useful part of an auditing process.
Quality control Quality control procedures range from software support for data processing at the technical level, through to scrutiny and performance review of management processes. In libraries the data processing quality control may be per medium of
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authority files that support cataloguing processes; the performance review may be of a task such as average time to undertake reference queries. Each of these procedures has its equivalent in the information management world outside libraries. For example many data dictionaries provide for data elements to have validation lists. That is, the data instances for a particular data element such as person’s name, may have only certain allowed values. Correspondingly, query answer throughput is a significant aspect of performance review in call centres. Data dictionaries provide for formalising and controlling the naming of entities, attributes and their relationships within databases, for example by inclusion of:
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Data entities such as elements, tables, rows, and keys.
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System entities such as programs and modules.
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External entities such as description of people, documents and devices.
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Identification attributes such as naming along with synonyms or aliases.
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Representation attributes such as data type or number of characters in an element.
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Control attributes such as ownership – who is allowed to change data instances for an element.
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Cardinality relationships: the number of instances one entity that may be related to instances of another, for example, a table has a certain number of rows.
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Subtype or subsumption relationships that indicate whether one entity is a part of another, for example a sedan is a subtype of car.
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When put into effect, data dictionaries support quality control of data as the data are entered. For example, when an operator is required to enter the postcode for an address into a database, a data dictionary may be used to:
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Validate the operator as a user who is allowed to enter postcodes.
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Have a postcode data element of a limited number of characters.
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Allow postcodes to appear only within the numerical range associated with the country of instance.
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Provide a picklist of allowed postcodes from a scrollable dialogue box for the data element.
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Provide alternative names to be used for the element (e.g. zipcode) by operators in different countries.
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Maintain a history of versions of naming and allowed values provided for any picklists.
Although dictionaries help to control data, they have limitations when it comes to fields that are more difficult to validate such as name and address. Data entry operators inevitably make keyboard transcription errors; they may be unable to differentiate forenames from family names; and the same customer may have their name recorded in different ways in the same organisation: with initials, with full forenames, with slight spelling variations in family name, or with family name changes over time. These present problems with identity tracking, or with matching say a purchase order and a complaint by the same person. The standards authorities, attempt to provide assistance in this area, for example Standards Australia has a standard for client interchange information that is presently under revision. Nevertheless, large corporations, even if they heed standards, find it necessary to carry out monitoring of their large data sets. Similarly, smaller Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 8.1: Library context)
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organisations responsible for key information used by larger ones must have many data quality checking approaches. An example would be a credit reference agency like Baycorp Advantage which sells crucial credit checking information to businesses. The businesses themselves will have supplied much of the information that the agency uses. However it can maintain data quality using: highly structured data; validating data with source bodies, for example address data with Australia Post; or by using specialist software such as comparators (comparing strings of data for likeness) or soundex (making phonetic matches), in order to identify element instances that are effectively the same even if they are recorded differently. Turning our attention from databases to websites, since the advent of the web, much has been written about maintaining the quality of web pages. Relevant advice appears in the many style guides that include recommendations about site quality. Corresponding guidance is provided in the checklists that support approaches to website evaluation. FAVORS (Queensland University of Technology, 2006) is one such list maintained online with examples and references . A summary of the website evaluation criteria that it illustrates is shown in Table 13.2. Information quality is maintained as much as possible at the information acquisition stage for databases, but attention must also be paid to the forms of presentation, typically through websites.
Table 13.2. Website evaluation criteria based upon FAVORS Criterion
Factors
Functionality
Active links; errors in mark-up; help facilities; layout; search facilities; site maps; alternate text for images.
Authority
Affiliations indicated; Copyright indications; creator responsibility; credentials; editorial oversight; funding source indication; viability.
Validity
Feedback; Ratings and awards; Refereed content; Referring links; Reviews of site; Usage figures.
Obtainability
Cost of access; Format support; Load factors; Metadata; Naming mnemonic; Security protection; Speed.
Relevance
Audience; Balance; Currency; Depth.
Substance
Accuracy; Coverage; Readability.
Breadth; Detail;
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Controversial Evidence;
content;
Explanation;
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Requirements analysis Librarians are familiar with determining the information requirements of individual patrons per medium of the reference query. They may also be called upon to determine the information seeking behaviour of groups in order to provide services for a particular set of users. This contributes to information needs analysis. The needs analysis process also occupies systems analysts, who may describe it in terms of requirements analysis. When user needs are being determined as part of a systems analysis process, the analysis is in order to find out the process by which information is sought, more so than the particular sources that might be appropriate. Information managers may have to analyse information seeking behaviour of a group in order to provide a strategy for providing for the group, or they may at a finer level of granularity, be required to identify information requirements in such a way that the requirements may be used to describe processes for system design. The broader needs analysis approach usually tries to frame the information seeking approach within a behavioural context. For example Choo, Detlor, and Turnbull (2000) consider that seeking behaviour is influenced by cognitive, affective and situational factors:
•
Cognitive factors apply when there is knowledge deficiency, and a choice must be made between alternative courses of action in order to make decisions, or because a person needs to make sense of a situation by better understanding of the elements that comprise it. For example a project manager embarking upon a new project will be seeking knowledge to address the functional, management and political factors that may impact upon the task. There is an expectation that the information that creates this knowledge will be accurate, reliable and pertinent.
•
Affective factors apply in relation to emotions such as apprehension or anxiety. A person may be motivated because of uncertainty about a frame of reference. It could be a matter of not knowing what is going on with a project stage, and therefore seeking understanding to instil self-confidence.
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At an initial phase of uncertainty too much unique information can alienate the person from the information subject. Their learning process may then be abandoned in frustration. Instead, if there is persistence and a growing appreciation of information relating to the query, it can be refined, patterns are recognised, hypotheses may be formed and the accretion of knowledge continues with growing confidence. •
Situational factors are influenced by the amount of time and effort necessary to carry out the search, or by whether it will be rewarded within the environment in which it is being undertaken. Beyond the cost and accessibility of material, this may involve the time necessary to learn a retrieval technique for a particular resource, or the time spent in interpreting information that is presented in reports that have not been aggregated for ease of use.
Although there are yet to be generally accepted models of information seeking behaviour, there is a vast corpus of studies of behaviour. As can be expected, much of this is undertaken in the area of marketing, where purveyors of products and services are attempting to anticipate how potential customers seek information. Information management is principally concerned with services, and there are many studies where a key factor being considered may be a personal attribute like youth, gender, aged, or disabled; a discipline such as scientist, or journalist; or a community need such as health, or small business. Case (2002) provides a detailed study of research into information needs, and illustrates it with case studies that focus upon occupation or social role or demographic group. The procedures for gathering information include:
•
Interviewing which may be of individuals or focus groups, and which may be structured using questionnaires, follow-ups for clarification, explanation of critical incidents, or recollections of procedures.
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•
Self-reporting of procedures undertaken.
•
Prototyping or developing of experimental or mock-up versions of systems and their interfaces, possibly accompanied by usability testing.
•
Observation of use behaviours, perhaps accompanied by verbalisation, or recorded behaviour such as interface interactions or query logs.
If determination of user needs has a system orientation, and understanding of associated processes is to be conveyed to the stage of system design, then the requirements analysis must proceed through a process of data and process modelling in order to make more explicit the level of abstraction that describes information requirements. There are numerous associated techniques including: use of structured English; work process analysis (narrative description of process steps); and more formal graphical approaches including flowcharting, data flow diagrams; or enterprise modelling. There are also hybrid approaches such as soft system methodology, which combines description and graphic representation, and object modelling, which integrates data and process approaches to systems analysis. An example of software that provides presentation support for a variety of these techniques is SmartDraw (SmartDraw Software, nd).
Preservation Ensuring that the corporate memory is retained and available is a key element of information management. Having in place procedures to achieve this should stem from the information policy level, and employ both technical and managerial strategies. The technical strategies should encompass:
•
Media preservation so that the physical medium holding the information is stored in non-invasive conditions – this may mean pest-free, climate
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controlled storage for paper; storage sites physically remote from a business; a system of reproducing analogue or digital records; or a means of converting documents in one medium to alternative or additional media. •
Technology preservation involving refreshing of data for new technology, and migration from outmoded technology – this may mean migrating the software with the data, or alternatively providing effective metadata so that new software may continue to process data that had been managed by different software on outmoded technology.
•
Intellectual preservation, meaning that the integrity and authenticity of information as originally recorded must be addressed to avoid changes that may be accidental, or may be intentional (either well meant or fraudulent).
If the integrity of ideas is to be maintained, then this means keeping the substance of the ideas constant at different levels of abstraction – from data (bits) to text (information). This maintenance must be continued with ‘fixity’ (Hunter, 2000). The information should not be subject to change through technology updates and it is necessary to differentiate update versions, perhaps by digital signature. Other assistance to digital information integrity includes referencing for example through persistent Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that provides a reliable approach to citation; an ability to track provenance through tracing sources using metadata; and continuation of context with respect to the wider environment, such as links to other documents, and identification of hardware and software dependencies. From a managerial viewpoint, decisions about preservation and disposal of documents have long been formalised in the recordkeeping environment, using procedures such as appraisal, and tools such as retention and disposal schedules. These schedules record metadata about appraised documents that indicate whether they are subject to regulatory constraints such as taxation legislation; how long they should be retained; who has custodianship of them and may make decisions about disposal;
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whether they should be maintained in different forms (paper, microform, digital); or if they are vital records, never to be destroyed. Enterprises may use two types of retention schedule. A functional schedule is based upon business functions such as personnel, sales, or travel. These may be repeated in many divisions of the same organisation or within government departments. A functional schedule can be applied across these for consistency of application by the corporation as a whole, or by a central organisation such as a state archive body. On the other hand, a departmental schedule is specific to a division or department and uses language particular to its own policy and administration. Such scheduling information may itself be held in a database and refer to both paper and digital material. It could in fact be integrated with data dictionary information as explored earlier above, so that at document description level, all the retention information is maintained with other metadata. An initiative that is helping to provide guidance in this area is the Data dictionary for preservation metadata (PREMIS Working Group, 2005). It has formalised preservation description that is necessary for websites, digital versions of newspaper articles, dissertations, and photographs. The proliferation of digital documents in organisations and the regulatory abuses that have led to litigation and demise of some large organisations make the development and application of such tools an imperative. However organisations are still coming to terms with what must be done. For example, in Singapore a survey of email users was conducted to assess the understanding of email management as official records (Seow, Chennupati, & Foo, 2005). Emails were found to be recognised as important business records and most employees acknowledged their critical importance to work and practice compliance. Yet they were typically left to manage their email on their own. The survey showed that 33% of the respondents saved their emails into personal folders, 25% printed and filed hardcopies in personal files, 19% saved to corporate servers, and 18% printed and filed hardcopies in shared files. Many of the respondents expressed increasing difficulty in retrieving their own or colleagues’ emails when required.
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Although email contains much information of significance to a business, it is unlikely to considered among the vital organisational records in a recordkeeping sense. Vital records support critical business processes and must be available for business continuity with backup and re-establishment procedures. A necessary element of a preservation program is a strategy for disaster preparedness that identifies vital records and makes provision for their safety and reconstitution. Institutions are working in an environment where regulatory efforts concerning information use are intensifying. They must be in a position to respond quickly to legal or corporate requirements for information that may seemingly be moribund. This requires a concerted technical and managerial framework for document preservation.
Information policy In the earlier section on information resource analysis, it was regarded as being considered holistically within an enterprise. Likewise information policy is concerned with the planning framework for an enterprise as a whole, rather than being confined to any particular resource within the organisation. As such, it must therefore be informed by public policy and work within the framework of corporate policy. Public policy that is likely to have an impact upon corporate information policy includes policy that has been enabled within legislation such as data protection, and policy which has been made explicit as directives within government such as dealing with provision of access to services. It includes policy to do with:
•
Intellectual property, which has implications for how an organisation makes use of information produced by others, and how it protects its own research and development, for example through the patents process.
•
Privacy, which for example will provide a framework spelling out what information about customers may be released to other parties, and how and why.
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•
Access, which in the case of government departments will spell out the extent of the publishing obligations by means of which the public may have access to bureaucratic workings, and data, for example through websites.
•
Repositories, which spells out the extent to which private corporate documents and published documents should have copies deposited in state or national repositories.
Table 13.3. Corporate policy constituents adapted from Middleton (2002). Definition
• Define the knowledge that is needed to achieve goals, the information needed to maintain the knowledge, and the ways in which people in the organisation need to use knowledge and information.
Acquisition
• Ensure that appropriate information is acquired from externally, and generated internally.
Utilisation
• Exploit information fully, to meet all current needs, and to help meet changes in goals and in the operational environment. • Use knowledge and information ethically in all internal and external dealings. • Provide appropriate human and financial resources for managing and developing the use of information and knowledge. • Organise information to facilitate tailored access to individuals and groups and sharing between systems. • Ensure that information reaches all the people who need to use it on time, and in the right format.
Evaluation
• Audit the use of information and knowledge regularly to ensure that what is needed is available, of appropriate quality, and used appropriately and to good effect. • Provide for a coordinated overview of total resources of knowledge and information. • Develop and apply reliable means of assessing the costs and value of information, and the contribution it makes to achieving objectives.
Authority
• Identify the people responsible for managing specific information resources, and those who are ‘stakeholders’, and ensure that the authority of the managers of information resources matches the responsibility they carry.
Communication
• Promote information interchange between managers of information resources, and between them and stakeholders.
Infrastructure
• Develop and maintain an infrastructure of systems and ICT to support management of information resources and interactions within the organisation and externally.
Access
• Pursue openness of access to information inside the organisation and externally. • Provide for ongoing awareness in disciplinary and managerial specialities. • Provide appropriate security levels. • Safeguard current and historical information resources so that they remain accessible for use at all times.
Preservation
• Ensure preservation of the organisation’s ‘memory’ in the form of its knowledge base. • Provide for business continuity with backup and re-establishment procedures for records supporting critical business processes.
Disposal
• Identify conditions under which information media may be eliminated.
Familiarisation
• Provide appropriate education and training to enable members of staff to meet their responsibilities in using knowledge and information.
Evolution
• Align the definitions as goals evolve and change. • Seek to use knowledge and information to support the management of change initiatives to benefit the organisation, and to create new knowledge. • Use the policy as the basis for information strategies which support business strategy.
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Jurisdictions typically have an agency which acts as a focus for the development of, and pointers to, public policy. An example is AGIMO (Australian Government Information Management Office, 2006). Corporate information policy will normally be an element of corporate policy as a whole. It should address aspects of strategic planning in order to provide an agenda for each of the sections that has been looked at in earlier sections. Table 13.3 shows an itemisation of the constituents that policy may include. Orna (1999, 2004) provides elaboration on these with examples of strategies that may accompany them, and case studies that illustrate policies for public and private sector organisations. Corporate information policy should be framed within an enterprise’s mission and objectives, and should produce strategies for dealing with each of the information management elements that have been described preceding it.
Conclusion Information is now generally taken to be a business resource. Its effective management will contribute to business performance. Elements of information management as itemised above, if applied using strategies developed from information policy, and undertaken efficiently will contribute to enterprise performance. Many enterprises are still coming to terms with differentiating information technology management from information management. In some cases they have turned to knowledge management to give more focus to the content rather than the technology for dealing with it. However information management still seems to be the most appropriate term for describing the recorded information that must be managed by an enterprise. Associated techniques such as information orientation (Marchand, Kettinger, & Rollins, 2001) are leading to a measurable way to establish the relationship between information use and business performance.
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Further reading Chaffey, D & Wood, S 2005, Business information management: Improving performance using information systems, Prentice-Hall/Financial Times, Harlow, UK. Macevièiûtë, E & Wilson, TD (eds.) 2005, Introducing information management: An information research reader, Facet Publishing. Vickery, BC & Vickery, A 2004, Information science in theory and practice (3rd ed.), K.G. Saur, London.
References ANZLIC 2001, ANZMETA XML Document Type Definition (DTD) for geospatial metadata in Australasia, viewed 21st March 2006, . Aslib 2006, Aslib, the Association for Information Management, viewed 12 March 2006, . Asprey, L & Middleton, M 2003, Integrative document and content management: strategies for exploiting enterprise knowledge, Idea Group, Hershey, PA, USA. Australian Government Information Management Office 2006, AGIMO, viewed 25th March 2006, . Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2003, National health data dictionary, no 12, viewed 28th March 2006, . Burk, CF, jr. & Horton, FW, jr. 1988, Infomap: a complete guide to discovering corporate information resources, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA. Case, DO 2002, Looking for information: a survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behavior, Academic Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Choo, CW 2002, Information management for the intelligent organization: the art of scanning the environment (3rd ed.), Information Today for ASIS, Medford, NJ, USA. Choo, CW, Detlor, B & Turnbull, D 2000, Web work: information seeking and knowledge work on the World Wide Web, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, Netherlands. Clyde, LA 2004, 'Weblogs – are you serious?' The Electronic Library, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 390-392.
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Frishammar, J 2003, 'Information use in strategic decision making', Management Decision, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 318-326. Henczel, S 2000, The information audit: a practical guide, Saur, München, Germany. Hunter, GS 2000, Preserving digital information: a how-to-do-it manual, Neal-Schuman, NY. ICONCLASS 2005, viewed 29th March 2006, . Inter alia 2006, viewed 29th March 2006, . International Standards Organisation 2002, Electronic data interchange for administration, commerce and transport (EDIFACT) - Parts 1-8 (No. ISO 9735-1:8). Kremer, S, Kolbe, LM & Brenner, W 2005, 'Towards a procedure model in terminology management', Journal of Documentation, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 281-295. Marchand, DA, Kettinger, WJ & Rollins, JD 2001, Information orientation: the link to business performance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Mauthe, A & Thomas, P 2004, Professional content management systems: handling digital media assets, Wiley, Chichester, UK. Middleton, M 2002, Information management: a consolidation of operations, analysis and strategy, CSU Centre for Information Studies, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia. National Archives of Australia. (2002). AGLS metadata element set Part 1: reference description. Version
1.3.
Viewed
11th
July,
2006,
National Archives of Australia. (2005). Australian Governments' interactive functions thesaurus Viewed
AGIFT.
29th
October,
2005,
National
Library
of
Australia
nd.,
Australia
dancing,
viewed
March
12
2006,
. Oettinger, AG, McLaughlin, JF & Birinyi, AE 1999, 'Charting change: The Harvard Information Business Map' in The information resources policy handbook: Research for the information age, BM Compaine & WH Read (eds.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MS, USA, pp. 323-246.
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Oppenheim, C, Stenson, J & Wilson, RMS 2003, 'Studies on information as an asset II: Repertory grid', Journal of Information Science, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 419-432. Orna, E 1999, Practical information policies (2nd ed.), Gower, Aldershot, UK. Orna, E 2004, Information strategy in practice, Gower, Aldershot, UK. PREMIS Working Group 2005, Data dictionary for preservation metadata, viewed 28th March 2006, . Queensland
University
of
Technology
2006,
FAVORS,
viewed
23rd
March
2006,
. Roberts, S. (1996). The contribution of librarianship to information management. In J. M. Brittain (Ed.), Introduction to information management (pp. 23-49). Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia: Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies. Robertson, G 1997, 'Information auditing; the information professional as information accountant', Managing Information, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 31-35. Robertson, J 2003, So, what is a content management system?, viewed 18th March, 2004, . Rosenfeld, L & Morville, P 2002, Information architecture for the Word Wide Web (2nd ed.), O'Reilly, Cambridge, MA, USA. Seadle, M. (2006). Content management systems. Library Hi Tech, 24(1), 5-7. Seow, BB, Chennupati, KR & Foo, S 2005, 'Management of e-mails as official records in Singapore: a case study', Records Management Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 43-57. SIM
2006,
The
SIM
portfolio,
viewed
12
March
2006,
. SmartDraw
Software
nd,
SmartDraw.com,
viewed
27th
March
2006,
. Sprehe, JT 2005, 'The positive benefits of electronic records management in the context of enterprise content management', Government Information Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 297-303. Standards Australia 2002, Australian Standard AS 5044.1-2002: AGLS metadata element set - Reference description, Standards Australia, Sydney, NSW.
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United Nations 2002, List of international family of economic and social classifications, viewed 22nd March 2006, . US Commission on Federal Paperwork 1977, Information resources management, USGPO, Washington, DC, USA. Williams, R, Boulton, T & Bartosiewicz, I 2003, 'When one size does not fit all: distributing content management system and web publishing in a large university' in AusWeb03: changing the way we work: proceedings of AusWeb03, the ninth Australian World Wide Web Conference, A Treloar & A Ellis (eds.), Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, pp. 578-590. Wilson, TD 2003, 'Information management' in International encyclopedia of information and library science (2nd ed.), J Feather & RP Sturges (eds.), Routledge, London, pp. 263-277. Wood, S 2006, UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), viewed 29th March, 2006, .
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Chapter 9: Discussion and conclusions 9.1.
Achievements of research program The research program comprised two phases:
•
The creation of a document that endeavoured to establish a consolidated description of the information management discipline.
•
The testing of the principles expressed in the book with respect to a distinct working environment in which it was anticipated that the principles might be practiced.
The document took the form of a book that was an exposition of information management principles within the framework of domains that had previously been proposed. It was produced after reconsidering earlier works in the field of information management as a discipline. Its early chapters form a redaction of earlier work in that they bring together and consolidate prior accounts through reference to the information professions, information science and information’s role in organisations. The early chapters of the book set a scene for three subsequent parts of the book that comprise exemplification of information management in practice as carried out at three differentiated levels. The first of these is the operational level which refers to techniques of information management that are applied at the different stages of an information life cycle. These techniques are used principally with information about the information passing through the life cycle (metadata or metainformation). The second is the analytical level which refers to the processes employed to determine and design what is carried out at the operational level, and then to evaluate such operations. The third is the administrative level which is concerned principally with strategic planning. As such it considers information as a resource. Its use must be planned in an institutional environment that takes account of internal corporate policy along with external social and political influences. The excerpts in Chapter 3 of this thesis endeavour to capture the spirit of the book, by including the book’s Introduction along with an excerpt from each of the four
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Parts of the book so as to provide the configuration that represents the information management discipline. During the course of the literature searching for the book and subsequently, it was noted that the databases which describe the literature of the field did so in an inconsistent manner. This prompted an investigation of the controlled vocabularies that are used, an appraisal of the nomenclature employed in them, and support for the proposition that professionals in the discipline are still to find a consistent vocabulary for describing themselves. Following publication, the book was used as an instrument for examining application of information management in a particular working environment. STI services were chosen for the study for a number of reasons. A primary stimulus was my own involvement in the initial development of these services. From this, I imagined that they would represent many of the purposes to which information management principles could be put into practice. They comprised a relatively distinct set of cases for examination, and documenting their early evolution seemed a bonus quite apart from any disciplinary consideration. They each provided an example of a service produced by one institution principally for the benefit of many others, and were therefore not necessarily constrained by internal corporate imperatives. Their early development occurred prior to when articulation of information management principles was initially undertaken in the academic sphere. In this respect they appear to be examples of a practice that could have given rise to subsequent moves to establish principles and a disciplinary framework. The case studies were undertaken over a period of three years. Analysis was firstly undertaken by reference to the literature of the services. This was accompanied in part by examination and use of the databases that have been created by the STI services on their current platforms. Having identified key individuals involved in the establishment and maintenance of the services, informal interviews were undertaken with parties in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, or by telephone. These enabled the refinement of an interview protocol based upon the configuration of the book. This protocol was then employed to conduct formal structured interviews which were carried out in Adelaide, Sydney and Canberra. The interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis with NVivo software.
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The interviews were complemented with archival research of records undertaken at CSIRO’s headquarters in Canberra, and at the NLA in Canberra. Interview, archival and database material was refined by follow-up with interviewees or correspondence and telephone conversations with current service providers. At the outset, the findings from this process were principally to support the investigation of disciplinary formation. However it was found following presentation of a paper based upon initial findings for one service at a U.S. conference on the history of such services, that there was interest in the historical formation of STI services per se. Therefore the findings were subsequently divided into those that emphasised the historical aspect, and those that emphasised discipline formation. The material with historical emphasis is presented in Chapter 5. Together the two papers in that section characterise the STI services, and analyse the public policy framework that influenced their establishment. The first paper includes a cursory overview of database development. This was elaborated in much more detail in the second paper in Chapter 5, which from the characteristics identified, was able to lead to proposals for refinement of coverage, metadata and citation in database production. The material with discipline formation emphasis is presented in Chapter 6. This comprises an initial foray into disciplinary analysis with reference to the AESIS service, and a more detailed paper that takes into account each of the case studies, and is complementary to the second paper in Chapter 5. It was found that the approach of conceptualising information management in operational, analytical and administrative levels could be undertaken effectively in these instances. The STI services provided useful models for expression of the information management framework. On completion of case studies, it was considered worthwhile to revisit a model for an information management proposed in earlier literature (Rowley, 1998), and to reconsider it in the light of findings. As a consequence, a revision of this model has been proposed that modifies it to embrace the approach of my own work using levels. As Rowley also used the terminology of ‘levels’ I have differentiated her conceptualisation from mine by reverting to ‘domains’ for my own interpretation of spheres in the discipline. This paper is presented in Chapter 7. While completing the work, I was offered the opportunity to contribute to a book looking at contemporary developments in librarianship. This gave the impetus to produce a paper that uses the research to delineate the differences between information Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 9: Discussion)
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management as understood inside and outside the library context. This contribution comprises Chapter 8. Together, the works comprise a detailed investigation of the disciplinary framework of information management, proposals for improved characterisation of the framework, understanding of its relevance with STI services, and its relationship to the library environment.
9.2.
Methodological critique This work was a journey that comprised a number of different projects each of
which formed part of the analysis of discipline formation. The approach was shown schematically in Figure 1.1. There the methodological approach is described as ‘mixed’. However, it is essentially segmented into two principal parts. The first of these I described in the method section as redaction because of its consolidation of prior accounts of information management with reference to the information professions, information science and role of information in organisations. However the redaction is articulated within the framework of a model suggested by characterisation of domains. This model is then tested in the second part by examining whether it may be applied in an information services field. In this respect, I have adopted an approach alternative to other studies that have been identified in the literature review. Those studies in Section 2.6 that specifically identify information management as a discipline are essentially conceptual expositions carried out either to promote a research framework within which the discipline should be studied, or to support an educational agenda that prepares for entry to the field. They are supported by the literature and by the experience of the writers, and provide leadership, but they are not supported by specific case studies of the discipline. When case studies have been carried out by others (as noted below in 9.5) they have made assumptions about the discipline without endeavouring to frame them within a disciplinary model. The prior disciplinary studies in information management may be characterised as epistemological rather than sociological. This distinction was described in section 2.1 for disciplinary studies in general. Epistemological analysis tends to be undertaken
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by those working within the discipline, whereas sociological analysis, as is to be expected, is undertaken by sociologists. A sociological approach was adopted by Abbott (1988) as outlined in 2.3. His work is of relevance because although not using the term information management, he investigates the information professions. He also used the term case study, but in his case it is with respect to detailed historiographic analysis of the literature. In contrast my approach has been to use case study for detailed analysis of practice through interview and examination of systems. It is case study to help understand epistemology of the discipline’s practice rather than sociology of its practitioners. Is this methodological approach therefore of utility for defining the discipline? The initial epistemological definition of the field appears to be, judging by the adoption of the book to support courses in the area at a number of Australian universities. The case studies corroborate the framework adopted in the book, though of course they are conducted in but one area of information management. However the cases in turn provide a framework for further study in other areas. The general approach of utilising a model to typify the field has proved useful for developing a case study protocol. Future case studies of the discipline’s applications can benefit from such an approach.
9.3.
Problems encountered Production of the book was a process drawn out longer than anticipated for a
number of reasons: addressing reviewer questions, adapting to editorial requirements, negotiating the many copyright clearances for illustrative material, and dealing with the formatting problems introduced by typesetters. Conducting the case studies themselves was a protracted process as they all involved interstate interviews carried out as opportunities arose. However, the interviews themselves were all fruitful. At the outset, I had also proposed also to undertake a survey of information professionals. The richness of the case study data, and the ability to conduct detailed interviews with information professionals as part of those studies, meant that the survey phase became unnecessary for the project.
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The archival research was problematical because of incompleteness of records, poor information organisation within some of the records, and the time-consuming nature of going through the material. However this part of the work still proved useful for raising questions, reconciling some issues, and placing me closer to the milieu of those working in the STI services.
9.4.
Limitations Although the work comprises a proposed disciplinary framework and a test of
the application of that framework, the proposal is itself compromised by the definitions that are adopted in order to establish the framework. That is, the domains, while proposed earlier in prior literature, along with the understanding of ‘information’ and ‘management’ may really be at the whim of the ‘understander’. They need to be consistently subscribed to in professional groupings in order to have more substance (see suggestions for further work below). The book which describes the general area of information management is coloured by my own experiences working in the area, by the difficulty of coherently consolidating material from a range of disciplines across which the depth of my knowledge varies, and by the challenge of expressing such a range of material in a relatively succinct and useful manner. The case method relied in part upon managers’ recollections of involvement in STI services. Many had either moved on to other employment or are retired, so a limitation is the assumption that their recollections will be accurate. The documentation that describes these services is also incomplete and politically influenced. The structured interviews were limited by the selection and range of participants, my ability to extract their answers and assimilate their views, and their ability to articulate them.
9.5.
Further research directions A disciplinary framework in any area of social endeavour necessarily evolves to
accommodate the way humanity performs with respect to that endeavour. It is to be
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 9: Discussion)
322
expected that discipline formation will be subject to rolling review and reinterpretation in order to support professional development, standards of practice, models of understanding, and curriculum development. Earlier, and in some detail in Chapter 7, reference was made to a refinement of an earlier framework proposed by Rowley (1998; 1999). Rowley includes an illustration that she uses to exemplify a structure for knowledge, research and practice for information management. Adaptation of her illustration according to the framework established in this thesis is shown in Figure 9.1.
Environment/context (strategic domain)
Information systems (analytical domain)
Information systems (operational domain)
Information retrieval (analytical domain)
Information retrieval (operational domain)
Information systems (operational domain)
Information systems (analytical domain)
Figure 9.1: Information management framework
Rowley proposes her framework not only to provide a structure, but also to help with identification of the level of aggregation (from individual through corporate to society), and recognition of which types of information managers are involved in different types of information management processes. The above figure simplifies and assists that same process. As such it should contribute to better understanding of the
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 9: Discussion)
323
discipline, as well as providing assistance with forming an approach and scoping case studies that further describe and analyse the discipline. As a discipline drawing from other disciplines, information management will continue to have to accommodate models that are developed elsewhere from fields as diverse as psychology, linguistics, commerce, systems, communications and public policy. The challenge will continue to be to contain these within a coherent framework that may be employed by a professional grouping. Although there are many examples in the professional literature of information professionals describing how and why they operate particular information services or systems, it is seldom that they are described within the framework of an overarching set of information management principles. Reference is made elsewhere in this work to case studies brought together by Simmons (1999), and Orna (1999), in the case of the latter making use of some information management policy and planning principles. My work adds some critical assessment of information management application to the dossier. However the field could benefit from many more case studies in other areas of application and with respect to disciplinary principles, in order to test and evolve those principles, to establish consistencies and divergence across areas of application, and to assist with benchmarks for services and systems. More specifically with respect to work arising from my own research, analysis of the individual services has produced a detailed summary of each service somewhat like that provided for AESIS in Chapter 6.1. Although that overview has contributed to the publications in Chapter 5.2 and 6.2, the detail provided therein is limited by publication and refereeing constraints. Each of these STI services could be described in more detail in separate publications or in a monograph that reviews each of them in detail, should a publisher consider that there is enough interest to warrant this. Within such a composition the AESIS paper itself needs to be revised to take account of the later AusGeoref development.
9.6.
Significance and conclusion The work succeeded in presenting a disciplinary framework for information
management, and showing that this framework was an effective representation of the discipline in a bibliographic information services environment.
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 9: Discussion)
324
It can be noted that the book is now used in a number of Australian universities where information management courses are taught. Further, it is used not so much as a text, but as intended: as a disciplinary purview, a course text that provides a context for specific subject texts. Research contributions within the publication framework are:
•
An explanation of the principles utilised in information management and the way that they are practiced within different domains.
•
An explanation of the manner in which the information management discipline has been formed which should assist with direction of future research and scholarship.
•
An analysis of the information management factors important for the development of information services and indicators for their successful application in future. A description of the extent to which the practices across the range of
•
interpretations of information management can be given common expression, so that practicing information professionals can appreciate the relationship of their own work to disciplines that are converging towards similar purpose. •
A clearer indication of the extent to which technical and management standards may be applied and performance analysis undertaken.
Some additional outcomes not planned for at the beginning of the undertaking are:
•
A comparative analysis of thesauri in the information field that shows how expression of employment within the discipline is still unreconciled.
•
A historical examination of Australian STI services that provides pointers to their effective continuation.
• A reconsideration of the relationship between librarianship and information management.
Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 9: Discussion)
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