Perspectives on the evidence,

value and impact of LIS research:

conceptual challenges

Andrew Dillon

School of Information

University of Texas

MAIN POINTS

Major background shifts in ecology of info

Impact and value elusive to measure

Designing our role around human and social

responses

Info as the field for accelerating discovery

BACKGROUND SHIFTS

Emergence of an expansive cyberinfrastructure

Data shift from standalone, controlled to networked, aggregated, and accessible

Longer-lived population of potential lifelong learners

More diverse educational experiences

Leadership gap

2:1 ratio of those leaving: those entering the info workforce

99.99% of all new data is created digitally

And a user population comfortable with this

Concerns with curation, management, access are now widespread beyond the „owning‟ discipline

The playing field……

More than 1.2bn Internet users, 2bn anticipated by 2015

150m adults in US use internet daily Using Email ~ 100m Search engine ~ 75m Just for fun – 70m Research ~ 21m Watch video/music ~ 30m

40m users claim the internet is their primary source of scientific information (and 80% of these check the info for accuracy)

Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010

On the horizon…

The cell phone refusniks disappear– only 15% of US adults report not owning one

By 2020 majority of info will be in the

cloud, 72% of expert users anticipate this replacing their

PC

Collection development as we know it will

cease

Buildings won‟t house collections

Faculty view libraries as purchasers

Rise of the „e-patient‟ in all areas is likely

Shifts in sub-disciplines of

information:

L vs. I

Human Factors – HCI – CSCW

Now they don‟t talk to teach other

Management Information Systems

Identity crisis post 2000

Computer Science

Confidence crisis in the information age (Klawe

and Shneiderman 2005)

Boundary confusion

LIS

Social Informatics

Information Science/Studies/Technology

Instructional/Educational Technology

Information

Architecture/Policy/Management/……

Credentials and jurisdiction under

question

Professions shift (inelegantly) according to cultural and social forces

Speed of digital development creates instability in expertise and credentialing

This instability creates turf wars and fault-line

thinking Paper v. digital

Library v info

Us v them

“There has been more change in last decade than in preceding century”

National Academies “Preparing for the Revolution” (2007)

INFO IS PART OF WHO WE ARE

15,000 BC Cave paintings

3500 BC traces of early writing

2500 BC Library at Ebla

2000 BC first catalog

1000 BC Phoenecian alphabet formed

800 BC early Greek writings

290 BC Library of Alexandria

100 BC first bound books

400 AD First copyright case

700 AD wood block prints

1100 Moveable type

1455 Gutenberg‟s metal type

1583 first use of a digital classification system

1650 first daily newspaper in Leipzig

1714 first mechanical typewriter

1814 first photographs

1831 First electric telegraph

MARKING OUR PROGRESS…..

AND IT KEEPS GOING….

1930 first television broadcast

1937 first photocopier

1938 ballpoint pen

1941 Z3 – software based computer

1945 – As we may think published

1947 - cellular phone invented

1969 ARPANet

1993 Mosaic browser released

1999 Blackberry released

2004 Facebook launched

2005 Google print library

2007 iPhone

2010 ?

SO WHAT?

Civilization shifts as information explodes

language, writing, printing…computing

Computing moves from calculation to augmentation

We are at a moment of profound change in the ecology of information

Whose perspective on this is correct?

What is the LIS perspective?

“Nobody reads anymore”

And yet…

1.1 2.55.9

8.612.7

28.2

46

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Global Estimates of e-Readers Sales

Total Units Sold in Millions

“we feel the ebook moment is finally here”.VP of Oxford University Press, Casper Grathwohl 2009

The Gutenberg

Parenthesis?

The last 500 years an anomaly

Oral culture shifted to written culture

Words became contained in media

Categorization flourished

But it was „temporary‟

The web is a return to pre-Gutenberg

orality

The space for LIS

Too much emphasis on

search, location, retrieval

Too little emphasis on longitudinal outcomes

Meaning has proved an elusive quality

Human engagement beyond target is untouched

Sharing (not just pointing) under appreciated

Large number of users for whom digital info

remains non-accessible

Human Computer

Inequality

It’s the gap not

the movement

that matters

Truth is not tech-based

Three real worries:

A new literacy is emphasizing search over

comprehension

We study technology at expense of humans

We lose the perspective of time

The „literacy‟ of S-R

Search & Retrieval: The new stimulus-

response arc

“It is clear …new forms of “reading” are

emerging as users “power browse”

horizontally through titles, contents pages

and abstracts going for quick wins.”.

60% of e-journal users (over 5 year period)

view no more than three pages, and the

majority never return

Ciber Briefing

Speed is of limited value

Australia moved from a monthly calendar

in reporting its balance of trade figures to

a quarterly calendar because it was felt

that the noise in the monthly statistics

were injecting too much volatility into the

price signals from financial markets. Morris and Shin, 2002, The Social Value of

Public Information

What makes information

valuable?Friberg and Reinhardt

2009

A survey of 610

managers across 21

companies shows that

54% of see the biggest

barrier against making

good decisions is

inconsistent, deficient, a

nd incomplete

information in

organizations

Major criteria for Info

Quality:

Comprehensibility

Believability

Relevance

Timeliness

[Completeness]

THE QUALITY CRUX

Comprehensible?

Timely?

Believable?Choose any

two

Studying reputation

Participants:100 university

undergraduates (59

female)18-26 years old

Read/listened to

introductory text (half were

told about focus group)

Read 2 articles and

evaluated their credibility

(half read Article 1 as

Wikipedia and Article 2 as

Britannica)

Took a series of personality

and demographic

measures

Main findings

Article 1 Britannica Wikipedia F p

Perceived credibility 3.80 3.46 9.65 .002

Recommend to others 3.48 (1.18) 3.24 (1.03) 2.41 .12

Article 2

Perceived credibility 4.15 (0.27) 3.9 (0.29) 25.75 .001

Recommend to others 4.2 (0.97) 3.54 (0.93) 12.72 .001

The information

professional? Any consideration of our role must

include:

knowing,

designing for,

reinforcing better information behaviors?

The questions are about people, the

technology is about supporting them

We must identify the human rules and

keep them to the fore in all info system

discussion

DATA IS STORED, INFORMATION IS EXPERIENCED

data users

media

tion

context

arc of interpretation

arc of exploration

Measuring impact

Evidence-based research models not well

suited

LIS has much qualitative work

Hard to meta-analyze

The drive for „impact‟ encourages “trendy”

work

INFORMATION EXPERIENCED IN THE PURSUIT OF

DISCOVERY

Enabling it

Accelerating it

Retaining it

Providing opportunities for it

And designing spaces for it Physical and digital

Curation

Organization Interaction

THE DISCOVERY

DISCIPLINE? Foundations:

analysis of human learning

The provision of curated resources

The design of enabling spaces

the culture of open enquiry

It is art and science,

It is politics and economics

Its research and teaching

It is a social contract with our future

INFO FACILITATES DISCOVERY

THROUGH:

the organization and presentation of data for exploration and use

the design of data-human interfaces that enable exploration

the curation of data collections for quality and detail over time

the examination of the value of information in the discovery process

the examination of policies and procedures governing access and

use

the support of dynamic ecologies for learning, wherever they are!

the analysis of how appropriate information access benefits a

society

the protection of citizens‟ rights to access and share information