New technological horizons and opportunities for LIS
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045596 |
| Pages | 455-462 |
| Date | 01 June 1997 |
| Published date | 01 June 1997 |
| Author | Elspeth Hyams |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
FOCUS
article
..the changing
face
of
information
New technological horizons
and
opportunities
for LIS
Elspeth Hyams
Institute
of
Information Scientists, 44-45 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LY,
UK
E-mail: iis@dial.pipex.com
The Library & Information Systems Technology conference
LIST
'97 took place
for
the
first
time
in
September
1997
at the
University
of
Hertfordshire,
Hatfield,
UK,
aimed
at
chief
librarians,
information
centre
managers,
senior
executives
and
corporate information
providers who are affected by the issues raised by the use
of
technology
in
library
and
information
work.
On
11 September
Elspeth
Hyams,
Director
of
the Institute
of
Information Scientists
(http://www.iis.org.uk/),
gave this talk on what the
information professional
must do
to
survive
in
the
future.
The
talk
was given
as part of
the
topicstream
'Networking the
next
millennium's
libraries'.
LIST '97
was
organised
by
Infologistix:
its
home
page
is
http://www.infologistix.co.uk/infologistix/list97.htm.
1.
Introduction
In
the
convergence
of
communication technologies
we
are
currently experiencing, popularly described
as
the
Information Revolution,
it is
important
not to
be confused by the fact that the medium for delivery
is increasingly
one,
usually
the
computer screen,
even
if
the
sources
of
the information delivered on
it
will continue
to be as
diverse
as
previously. What
is
new(ish)
is the
much larger proportion
of
data that
utilises
the
same delivery channel (probably,
ulti-
mately,
the
intelligent TV screen), complemented
to
a lesser extent than previously
by
other media such
as newspapers, books, training videos manuals
and
so on.
Now this
may be
pointing
out the
obvious,
and
please forgive
me if it is
self-evident,
but
we should
not confuse
the
delivery
channel
with
the
content
of
the message.
Nor
should
we
confuse
the
fact that
the consumer will
in
many cases want seamless
access
to
data
in all
media with
the
fact that those
who work
on the
content
and the
mechanisms
for
delivering
it
will continue
to
have different skills
and
specialisms, while sharing
a
training
in
certain com-
munication techniques.
At present,
the
information society
is a new
phe-
nomenon.
Because
of the
theoretical potential
of
information systems
to
digitise
all
data,
we
have
all
got
our
wires crossed,
in a
metaphorical
if not a
lit-
eral sense. We think
—
rightly
—
that
in
theory
we
can access
and
manipulate everything that
is
digi-
tised,
from information whose value
is
entirely
ephemeral
to
that which
has
'permanent'
or
more
lasting value; and transmit and manipulate, process
and exploit that data through
the
medium
of
infor-
mation technology.
But we
have forgotten that
not
everything that
is
digitisable
—
advertising material
and promotional literature,
for
example
— is all of
equal value, just because
it
happens
to sit
on
a
Web
site somewhere.
The
result,
in the
present free-for
all,
has
been the creation,
or
rather the explosion,
of
a vast online network
of
data sources:
a
huge data
gloop,
often unmediated
and
unsorted, despite
the
best efforts
of the
software developers
and
their
attempts
to
refine search engines and help
us
select
useful material.
And, of
course, this
is
quite apart
from
the
complex technical problems associated
with
the
still rudimentary technology
for
indexing
visual data and moving pictures.
It
is
ironic, given
the
nature
of the
technology, that
what we have
in
old-speak terms is actually a library
of everything being published, sold
and
marketed
everywhere, not to mention the promotional material
itself.
This library
has no
classification scheme
and
(pace existing search engines and
the
work
on
arti-
ficial intelligence) still only very rudimentary tools
for
sorting and rejecting non-valuable data.
It
goes
with-
out saying that there
is
no consensus whatsoever on
what documents
or
data should
be
retained,
and if
so,
in
what form
or
forms. Needless
to
say,
it is not
valuable
to
most users like this,
and it
confuses
the
professionals almost
as
much
as the
amateurs.
In
the
meantime, there
is
considerable unease
amongst
a
quite high proportion
of
information pro-
fessionals.
This
is
because the old-style job designa-
tions are changing and
it
is
no
longer possible
to ca-
tegorise them using yesterday's terminology. Most
people, even those with most cause
for
confidence,
feel distinctly uneasy about their inability
to
pigeon-
hole themselves by what they
do in
terms that
a lay
person understands.
And
though this
is not a
phe-
nomenon unique
to the
library and information pro-
fession (almost every profession faces
the
same
or
similar challenges thanks
to the
information revolu-
tion)
it
often manifests itself
as
something
of a
malaise. This malaise
is a
sub-theme
of my
talk
The Electronic Library, Vol. 15, No. 6, December 1997
455
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