Subject searching for information: what does it mean in today's Internet environment?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045413 |
| Pages | 459-466 |
| Date | 01 May 1995 |
| Published date | 01 May 1995 |
| Author | Carta Basili |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Article
Subject searching for information:
what does it mean in today's Internet
environment?
Carta Basili
Institute
for
Studies on Research and Scientific
Documentation,
National
Research
Council,
Via Cesare de Lollis
12,
00185
Rome,
Italy
E-mail:
basili@www.isrds.rm.cnr.it
1.
Information on the Internet
The information available through the Internet continues to proliferate. As it does
so,
it gains increasing importance and legitimacy throughout the scientific commu-
nity. Researchers can obtain information from the network just as easily as from a
library. The network is thus growing into one of
a
multiplicity of sources of knowl-
edge of
use to
the scientific
community.
Above
all,
it
is
about to become an invisible
everyday desktop work tool (much in the same way as wordprocessing programs
did before it).
Hence the increasingly pressing need for systematic, standardised mechanisms
to identify, locate and describe the network's information resources.
On the one hand, libraries would
view favourably an extension of the lo-
cal catalogue to incorporate and inte-
grate networked information. On the
other hand, researchers using net-
worked information would like to
have rules for the citation of bibliog-
raphic references. One is reminded of
the embarrassment of the editor of the
book cited by Basili & Pettenati
(1994) who, in publication, preferred
the rather vague title 'Sources Cited'
to 'Bibliographical References' be-
cause the list contained citations of in-
formation obtained on the Internet. (A
large part of the information processed
for this article was obtained from the
Internet itself.)
The Internet is thus a working tool
capable of adding an already huge —
perhaps too huge — and continuously
burgeoning welter of information to
the desktop.
Overwhelmed by this myriad of in-
formation, newcomers to the network
struggle to find their feet. Their quan-
dary is described by expressions like
'infoglut' or 'drinking from
a
firehose'
by the US Internet community. New-
comers generally pass through three
basic stages: initial enthusiasm, in-
volving long sessions of browsing
through networked information; per-
plexity, when they realise that there
are no systematic supports for infor-
mation retrieval; and finally disap-
pointment — or at least a falling off of
enthusiasm — when they realise that
only some sources or points of depar-
ture are valid. The disappointment is
heightened if they expect to find a sup-
ply of networked information services
comparable to that of online data-
bases — a content and retrieval tech-
nology as well as access technology.
2.
Online information and
networked information
This article will, hopefully, bring the
expectations in people who are about
to use the Internet and its information
resources for the first time down to
earth. First of all, it is necessary to
erase the illusions that may derive
from comparison between networked
information and the now mature, con-
solidated online databases. Such a
comparison would be unrealistic any-
way, since by its very nature the In-
ternet is profoundly different from
what commercial databases have
to
of-
fer. We are in fact faced with two com-
plementary worlds, each with its own
characteristics and its own specific va-
lidity.
One primary distinction is a simple
matter of the English terminology
used to define the two classes of infor-
mation: networked information and
online information . Here are some of
the elements which make the two
classes of information differ.
2.
1. Connection/communication
Online databases have a star-shaped
architecture in which a dumb terminal
— that is, devoid of the local process-
ing capacity of, say, a personal com-
puter — links up with a
service-supplying computer (host).
The terminal is completely subordi-
nate to the central computer
in
terms of
both query language
(i.e.
the language
used and imposed by the central com-
puter) and type of service (the terminal
can only use the services and informa-
tion resources made available by the
central computer). In the single work
session, the user may access only one
host, then make use of a specific serv-
ice.
This type of architecture sways to-
wards the host, which represents its
fulcrum.
In the case of the Internet, on the
other hand, the connection is reticular
inasmuch as the network
is a
constella-
The Electronic Library, Vol. 13, No. 5, October 1995 459
To continue reading
Request your trial