Mail List Discussion -- What's in a Name? Active/Passive Connotations of Information

Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu

New topic -- "What's in a Name? Active/Passive Connotations of Information"

Many thanks to the many CRISTAL-ED members who offered suggestions for new topics and stepped forward to volunteer to lead discussions in the new year. Although I am still waiting to hear from several volunteers regarding scheduling, we have the following four topics scheduled through the end of February:

• January 4-17 -- "Faculty Status for Librarians: Who Wants, Who Needs it, and Why," with Rosemary Fouad as discussion leader.
• January 18-31 -- "What's in a Name?" with Anne Abate as discussion leader.
• February 1-14 -- "The Paper Library: Beyond the Automated Card Catalog," with Hunter Kevil as discussion leader.
• February 15-28 -- "Certification Beyond the MLS," with Liz Lane Lawley as discussion leader.

During the holiday season, we will again feature another new topics discussion. In the meantime, you can contact me directly with new ideas (karen.drabenstott@umich.edu).

• December 14-January 3 -- "Open Topics"

Let's now turn to our next discussion, entitled "What's in a Name? Active/Passive Connotations of Information," hosted by Ray McInnis. Ray is no stranger to the CRISTAL-ED membership -- this is his second guest editorship. He is a graduate of the University of Washington's School of Librarianship, and has been in the Reference Department of Western Washington University's Library for over 30 years. Ray is the author of several books and numerous articles on bibliographic instruction, critical thinking, reference theory, and intellectual history. His most recent project was guest editor of a special issue of Social Epistemology, on the theme, "Discourse Synthesis." For Greenwood Press, he is both a consultant for developing reference books and editor of his own series, Reference Sources in the Social Sciences and the Humanities; the highlight of his series is a set of ten "Concept" dictionaries. Holding professor rank, Ray has received honors that include an appointment as adjunct professor of history (1986) and receipt of the University Diversity Award (1994). Ray has invited Margaret Fast to assist him in guest editing.

Please join the discussion on "What's in a Name?"

Ray McInnis
Western Washington University Library
Reference Department
rgmc@nas.com

What's in a Name? The indefinite connotations of information and the problems produced by such vagueness.

My proposition is that in our profession we use the term information too loosely, too generally to have any useful meaning, especially for students upon whom we foist the term as a concept. The term is used to refer to raw data and other types of low-level statistics while at the same time being used for the high-level abstraction of knowledge.

At the outset I must confess that in my new position of coordinator of instruction for research for the Research Across the Curriculum program at Western Washington University, I am somewhat hypocritical of my own argument when I use phrases such as "critical information-seeking skills" and talk of "information literacy" as a set of academic skills for our undergraduates. However, I know of no satisfactory substitute for the term information.

Harold Cassidy, in writing about knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, says that "knowledge is information of all kinds, (which, as well as) the result of analytic activity ... embraces the (investigation) and reporting of experience." He believes that "knowledge about" constitutes a higher level of abstraction, while wisdom "is more than understanding (for it) implies not only knowledge and understanding of knowledge, but also understanding of experience in all its subtle and noncognitive aspects." (The Knowledge Explosion; Liberation and Limitation. Francis Sweeney, ed., New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1966, pp. 187-8).

Three decades later, architectural historian Francis Morrone says it even better: "Could it be 'information' is the most overrated commodity on the planet today?" ("New York's Library in Cyberspace", The New Criterion, Vol. 15, Jan 1997, p. 79.) Morrone underscores his claim by noting Mortimer Adler's hierarchy of learning -- after beginning with information one progresses sequentially "to knowledge ... to understanding ... to wisdom." Morrone says that when one considers the "... Gettysburg Address and a string of nonsense characters containing exactly the same number of bits, the latter can actually be said to contain more 'information,' being higher in entropy or randomness. When we speak of information, then, digital or otherwise, we speak of more or less random bits." Thus, according to information theory, "knowledge involves a reduction, not an increase, in information; and that, by extension, understanding and wisdom mark further reductions in information."

He also succinctly states, "Knowledge is the sculpture chiseled from the stone mass of information, as understanding is chiseled of knowledge, and wisdom of understanding."

Nancy Freeman Rohde, a professor in the College of Education's Department of Work, Community & Family at the University of Minnesota, has investigated many different definitions of "information." ("Information Needs", Advances in Librarianship, Vol. 14, 1986, pp. 49-73.) She indicates that within the context of user studies information denotes "factual data or advice or opinion, a physical object, such as a book or journal, or the channel through which a message is conveyed, for example, oral or written communication." Integrated into a variety of areas of study, information, as a concept, "may not be used in the same way because the theoretical constructs of the researchers differ." To demonstrate, she discusses many studies with conflicting definitions of information.

Perhaps more interesting for background reading is the wide-ranging survey of information by Norman D. Stevens. ("The History of Information," Advances In Librarianship, Vol. 14, 1986, pp. 1 -48.) Our "Information Age," he claims, is mistakenly considered as something new. "...although we still lack a definitive work on the history of information [it] has long played, in one fashion or another, a key role in society but, to date, we have not dealt adequately with the concept of information as a historical force." He goes on to say "a problem exists in a lack of identifying the importance of dealing with the history of information as a specific concept." He thinks that promising work is being done within the scope of the history of the book, which incorporates authorship, publishing and reading, and is an emergent discipline in its own right.

Stevens adds to this, "works in information theory, library and information science, anthropology and archaeology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, and the like."

Stevens identifies what he considers the five most important themes for a theory of information:

1. Literacy
2. The organization of knowledge
3. Institutions and the dissemination of information
4. Control and freedom
5. The economics of information

Like Professor Rohde, Stevens begins with definitions, and cites numerous studies which have considered the term. Stevens asserts that the term "information" as well as the related term "knowledge," continues to be used differently by people in different disciplines, and for different reasons. Not unexpectedly, these practices produce: "confusion, especially as aspects of the definition from one discipline may be appropriately used more widely or be adopted in part by those in another discipline. ... (S)o diverse are the definitions of information today that, for the most part, it is impossible to reconcile them. ... (I)n most cases, (because information) has not been specifically defined, ... little consistency (exists) in the way in which the term ... is used and defined, or not defined, resulting in an assumption, obviously not correct, that a broad underlying definition of information exists that encompasses all uses of the term in all fields that is commonly and correctly understood."

According to Stevens, when scholars discuss similar ideas and issues, sometimes synonymously, and sometimes to make distinctions in the context of "information" three terms are employed: communication, information, and knowledge.

At the close of his survey Stevens argues that, rather than continuing to have a number of disciplines, each claiming centrality to any study of information, there is a need to broaden the scope of the field to create a discipline in which information itself is the central focus.

Following are several questions for the CRISTAL-ED readers to think over and respond to:

• Is "information" a viable concept?
• What obstacles exist in any effort to combine the diverse vested interests into a single, integrated discipline of information?
• Is a consensus on a meaning of "information" even possible?
• How do we move toward achieving some consistent, meaningful definitions for "information"?
• What contributions can the ongoing research in "sense making" provide in helping to define the concept of information?
• How useful would it be to examine other fields that use terms that are difficult to define? (e.g. communication, culture, postmodernism;. what are others?)
• Is (are) there a more meaningful term(s) than "information"?
• Is there a discipline which incorporates information as a major concept?

Professor Boris Raymond
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
braymond@is.dal.ca

1. The term is polysemous. It has at least a dozen or more separate denotations, and no generally agreed-upon definition. This means that, like Humpty Dumpty, when you use the term it can mean whatever you want it to mean, and that, forgive the pun, is disinformative.
2. The term, if it is to mean anything at all, must surely refer to an act, or a process of INFORMING someone of something. Yet unthinking users of the term refer to all texts (books, etc) as "information," ignoring the fact that many texts do not inform, e.g., a text in the undecyphered language of the Easter Islanders, or a text that is already well known and hence contains no new informative material, or a text that is unread for ideological or religious considerations. At most they are "potentially informative texts" (PITs).
3. The term is a highly abstract one. Like travel, it does not specify what subset is being referred to. In general, the higher the level of abstraction, the less there will be of specificity and the more vagueness of communication content. Like travel, it does not specify what kind of "information" is being talked about: a complex transfer of funds between two banks or the list of novels by Michner.
4. The term, as popularly used, is so broad as to encompass almost anything one can think of, from a text to an antelope. As such it has rapidly degenerated into a near-meaningless cliche. What is not "information"?
5. The term readily lends itself to semantic manipulation. While it DENOTES almost anything you can imagine, it also carries a high-prestige CONNOTATION. To refer to someone as an "information professional" is like calling someone a "health professional." Such labels can be used to disguise the difference between a hospital janitor and an eye surgeon. Likewise it disguises the difference between a clerk at a library loan desk and those who have created such massive bibliographic data bases as RLIN.
6. The term can also be used to mislead LIS students graduates by creating the impression that, because they will have a MLIS degree, there exists a large "emerging information" employment market waiting for them. It is not until they begin to study the job want ads for such positions as "Information Manager", that they will discover that these employers are not looking (in 90 percent plus) of the cases, for librarians, but for computer specialists and electronic communication technologists.
7. The term has been arbitrarily defined (primarily by the computer industry), in order to give a prestigious connotation to their products, and to create the incorrect impression that only computer technology can provide "information." (As though the old-fashioned and primitive card catalogue was uninformative.)

Richard Apostle and I analyse these, and many other reasons why the term "information" is unsuitable for any discussion that requires precise and unambiguous language in our recent work, Librarianship and the Information Paradigm, (Scarecrow Press, 1997).

Bob Watson
Executive Director
Franklin Park Public Library District
10311 Grand Avenue
Franklin Park, IL 60131
Voice: (847) 455-6016
bwatson@linc.lib.il.us

1. Is "information" a viable concept? I think so. One way of looking at "information" is as data which has been acted upon by a decoding device, it being the device (perhaps a brain) which gives it "meaning." I think we can pretty much discard the engineering definition of "information" being data which is successfully transmitted, at least for the purpose of this discussion. Beyond the "decoding" angle, I find that "information" gets pretty darned amorphous as a "thing in itself" and seems to become a property attached to something else, like a book, which may later be decoded. Or so it seems to me.
2. What obstacles exist in any effort to combine the diverse vested interests into a single, integrated discipline of information? I suspect a lot of us think we deal with "information" when what we really handle are records and meta-records. Information may be apparent only in use, but not in storage, so the issue of "using information" may be one of previous knowledge working on "new data" so as to contextualize it for the user.

   I'm not sure this affects what we do as librarians in providing access to material, except perhaps we should say that we do not provide "information," but rather the materials you need in order to create information. (An esoteric chemistry text may be chock-full of information for the chemist,but it's pretty much Greek to me.)

3. Is a consensus on a meaning of "information" even possible? I'd say "yes," though we might have to designate the definition we're using with a number (as in "Information3") if we're to keep things straight.
4. How to we move toward achieving some consistent, meaningful definitions of "information?" By being here, I'd guess, and writing about it. But how we'll get other folks from using the historic confusions I do not know. :-)
5. What contributions can the ongoing research in "sense making" provide in helping to define the concept of information? I think the sentence is well put -- it's useless to try to define "information" without readings in cognitive psychology. The issue, here, is how does "information" come about, not how people choose to use the term.
6. How useful would it be to examine other fields that use terms that are difficult to define? Not very, I think, but it's only my opinion.
7. Is there a more meaningful term than "information?" Not, as far as I know, in English -- but there may well be in other languages. It is ironic that English, with its massive vocabulary, may simply lack a term, but it is surely possible.
8. Is there a discipline which incorporates information as a major concept? Not to my knowledge, unless there's still work being done in social epistemology. Maybe at the school of library science in Madras?

Thanks, again, Ray for bringing this up.

Anthony Debons
Professor Emeritus
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
debons@lis.pitt.edu

Perhaps Paul Young's book, The Nature of information (New York Praeger Press, 1987) could be a good starter. Following that the Four NATO Institutes on Information Science ( 1972, 1973, 1978, 1986) could provide some point of reference.

Anthony Debons
Professor Emeritus
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
debons@lis.pitt.edu

For purpose of discussion (and other reasons as well), can we not take Bob Watson's reply to Ray as dictum for understanding "something" about information, teach it to our students (as being professors) and let them take it from there in lieu of "we don't know"? Having asked this, I would like to refer to Bob Watson's 6, 7, and 8:

6. Ontology is always difficult if not impossible-that is one of the reasons we have operational definitions. The psychologist's "mind" is a case in point but others come to mind as well from chemistry.
7. For my own personal use I have correlated information with "awareness." The South African's and others use "enlightenment" (from the French). I base this position on my belief that information is synonymous to life (after Paul Young, James Greier Miller, James R. Beniger, Glen Harmon and others). The rebuttal is clear -- this idea is abstract as the term "information." Indeed, as "thing" that which is in books, etc., but possibly not as "process" (that which derives from objects, i.e., not only books). Moreover, "process" can be measured (threshold); "thing" measured by metrics. However, I will admit that nothing that I have said would convince many in Library (or other institutions) administration to increase their budgets.
8. Discipline -- I agree, no. Interdiscipline -- hopefully (if you subscribe to the Chicago Universalists) and throw in a bit of Gestalt in the soup.

Ray McInnis
Western Washington University Library
Reference Department
rgmc@nas.com

Professor Boris Raymond
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
braymond@is.dal.ca

Hi, Ray:

I am glad that you seem interested. In general, from your introductory remarks, I find that we have a rather similar attitude towards the "I" word. (I think).

Some six years ago, my colleague, Richard Apostle, and I received a very generous grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada to do an empirical study of the impact of electronic and computer technology on Canadian libraries. (Richard has a Ph.D. in sociology from U.C. Berkeley, and I have an MLS and an MA in sociology from Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in librarianship from the Graduate Library School, U. of Chicago, and have been teaching library science at Dalhousie, Halifax, since 1974 until I retired.)

For the next several years we did a comprehensive library search on this topic, as well as conducting a Canada-wide survey of librarians to determine such matters as what specific jobs they are required to perform, the extent of their use of computer technology, the level of education in computer technology that their work requires, etc. We also did a content analysis of the established library and information science periodicals (Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.) to determine the extent of overlap of their contents, a comparative study of the National Library of Canada and C.I.S.T.I., and a survey of LIS education of the seven Canadian LIS schools. Finally, we studied in some detail the labor market in Canada for holders of the MLIS degree. This year our work was published by Scarecrow Press.

"Finally, has anyone given any thought to using 'the knowledge sciences' as the label that might get us out of this thicket of misunderstanding about 'information'?"

On this topic my views are not very orthodox. I do not think that it would serve any useful purpose to try, by artificial semantic gimmicks, to create a unified discipline out of a multitude of "information-related" ones. What counts for me is not some contrived verbal bridge between activities that require different skills, have different clients and are based upon vastly different educational and theoretical structures, but rather an empirical determination of the variables that Richard and I studied, plus a number of other factors that we did not cover.

Bob Watson
Executive Director
Franklin Park Public Library District
10311 Grand Avenue
Franklin Park, IL 60131
Voice: (847) 455-6016
bwatson@linc.lib.il.us

Hi again all,

Ray asked whether I'd changed my tune regarding his position on "information."

I don't think so. There's a difference, in my view, in what the "cataloging" people and the "public service" people do with "information."

The former are dealing with the packaging (and retrieval) of latent "informing." I think. The latter, however, are constantly "informing themselves" and, in turn, "informing others." They deal with "information" itself in an interactive sense, creating the linkages (in their own minds) needed to affirm that the latent "information" in a text will indeed inform the user.

I've used the terms "decontextualize" and "recontextualize" to explain the difference.

The cataloger (or indexer, or text-searching computer program) takes a piece of text and creates a way to search for the record without the necessity of knowing the author's original intent. The text is "decontextualized" and a record, of some sort, is created.

The public service person takes the "decontextualized" record and, through his or her own familiarity with the subject (or author. or publisher, etc.) "recontextualizes" the meaning so as to determine whether or not it is appropriate for the user. Who then "informs" himself.

It's an issue, as I see it, between "storage" and "use," and we librarians work in institutions which frequently require both.

This is probably as clear as mud -- I'm still working it through. :-)

Keith V. Trickey
Liverpool Business School
K.V.TRICKEY@livjm.ac.uk

I think if we shift the focus to the definition Gregory Bateson gave to the term "information" in Mind and Nature (1979): "any difference that makes a difference." (Bateson, G. [1979]. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. (1st ed.). New York: Dutton.)

it is then possible to contextualize it appropriately without getting bemused by manifestations ie a book or a bunch of onions and puzzling about the difference between the items rather than the difference the particular item makes in its specific context.

William Birdsall
birdsall@is.dal.ca

Huh? I guess I am attracted to the concreteness of "a book or a bunch of onions" rather than abstract conceptions of information. I have always found Heinz Von Foerster's observation appealing:

"We believe information can even be stored and then, later on, retrieved: witness the library which is commonly regarded as an information storage and retrieval system. In this, however, we are mistaken. A library may store books, microfiches, documents, films, slides, and catalogues but it cannot store information. One can turn a library upside down: no information will come out. The only way one can obtain information from a library is to look at those books, microfiches, documents, slides, etc." (in The Myths of Information, ed. Kathleen Woodward, 1980.)

[Woodward, K. (Ed.). (1980). The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture. Madison, Wisconsin: Coda Press.]

Tony Debons
debons@lis.pitt.edu

In response to Boris Raymond:

Great! Having said all that (and I will buy your book and read it carefully) could you please give me your conclusions, "What is in the Name?" Based on your response to Ray McInnis message, we should get off this semantic trip and move to shore and contemplate other things (as you suggest).

Ray McInnis
Western Washington University Library
Reference Department
rgmc@nas.com

The results of our discussion about the variety of working definitions of the concept "information" reminds me of the famous story about the hedgehog and the fox, attributed to the Greek poet Archilochus, and made famous by Sir Isaiah Berlin in a 1953 essay. Basically, the story goes like this: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

I dredged up a copy of Berlin's essay, along with Gregory Bateson's "Mind and Nature." (Keith Trickey's reference from Bateson is on pages 68-69.)

[Berlin, I., Sir. (1953). The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History. New York: Simon & Schuster]

[Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. (1st ed.). New York: Dutton]

As Berlin notes in his essay, scholars do not agree on how to interpret the underlying meaning of the differences between foxes and hedgehogs. On the one hand, from a simplistic perspective, these differenceS "may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog's one defense." On the other hand, especially in light of some recent findings of cognitive science, symbolically these distinctions, attributed to hedgehogs and foxes, can help us understand one of the deepest differences which distinguish human beings from each other.

Using some of Berlin's own words in connection with what I interpret as the distinctions in our discussion about the meaning of the concept "information" is, for me, instructive. From my perspective, in our personal interpretation of the concept, some of us are hedgehogs, and some of us are foxes. (I will leave it for each of you to decide precisely who is a hedgehog and who is a fox.)

There are of course great dangers in placing too much faith in these distinctions; however, as well as some "truths," I believe that looking at our problem through the lens of hedgehogs and foxes gives our conundrum some levity. Berlin, himself aware of this pitfall of putting too much weight on hedgehog vis a vis fox distinctions, observes that the "dichotomy, if pressed," can become "artificial, scholastic, and ultimately absurd." Regardless, he continues, the distinction offers "a point of view from which to look and compare, a starting-point for genuine investigation."

On the one hand, the hedgehogs are those people with personalities who, in their thinking patterns, seek to relate everything to a single vision, more or less consistent. For Berlin, and I think the definition is apt, by nature, hedgehogs in their thinking are people who are "centripetal." People, who are by nature foxes, live, act, and entertain ideas that are centrifugal, rather than centripetal; their thought moving on many levels, in pursuit of several ends.

Have I done justice to the dichotomy between the Hedgehogs and the Foxes? From our discussions, do you know who is a "hedgehog"? And who is a "fox"?

I look forward to your opinions, especially from some of you "lurkers." I know that you're out there.

Ben Speller
North Carolina Central University
SLIS
Durham, NC USA
speller@bambi.acc.nccu.edu

Thank you for reminding us of Berlin's essay. I wish that I had thought of it earlier!

By the way, Berlin died recently. So this is the second time within five days that his name has surfaced for me.

(Editor's note: Sir Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher and historian of ideas, revered for his intellect and cherished for his wit and his gift for friendship, died on Wednesday night, November 12, 1997, of a heart attack in Oxford, England. He was 88. New York Times, November 7, 1997)

Professor Tom Wilson
Head of Department of Information Studies
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN, U.K.
Voice: +44-114-282-5081
Fax: +44-114-278-0300
T.D.Wilson@Sheffield.ac.uk

My immediate reaction on discovering that this topic was about the meaning of "information" was, "Oh, no, not again!" To my certain knowledge, this has been a topic of debate in the LIS area for at least 30 years, either in connection with the term "information science" or simply on its own. And where has the argument got us in this time? Precisely nowhere. The fact is that the term, whatever its shortcomings, is USED -- and is used by many outside the LIS field (e.g., the information systems discipline) with all of its many different meanings.

In this respect it is no different from many other words in the English language that have multiple meanings: take for example, the little word "art" or "arts" -- it can be used to mean painting and drawing, engineering (the "useful arts"), it can mean camp and precious (an "arty" person), it can mean the humanities, it can mean simply the way of doing things -- the "art of angling." But I don't see any of the fields concerned getting up-tight about its use -- they just get on and do their own thing. Let us get on and do our own thing -- those who find the word abhorrent don't need to use it; those for whom it fills a useful purpose will carry on using it in any event.

As for my understanding of the word: the best and most general definition I ever came across (and I don't remember where it came from -- perhaps Colin Cherry) was "any modulated signal." Carry on modulating your signals, folks!

Robert W. Bauchspies, Jr.
Middleburg, Virginia
Coordinator@foxcroft.org

Out here in the Virginia countryside, reference is more often made to the dichotomy between the foxes and the hounds. I believe the British Parliament recently voted on such sporting activity. Nonetheless, Ray's recent comments illustrate an interesting perspective to which I will use as a point of departure and attempt to catch the right wave to this particular ground swell (surferspeak).

Regarding the notion of foxes and hedgehogs as characterizing different individuals and their take on what constitutes "information," what has been missing here is the bridge to the "gap," as Brenda Dervin might say. Information need not be this or that, it is but a word referencing meaning. We however, demonstrate folly by trying to state a certain compartmentalized notion of this word.

It remains interesting to see scholars offer up what they believe to be the great synthesis in identifying what we mean by "information." As if some such concept is new or can be heralded with some great fanfare. Surely information has existential connotation for the human agent must encounter such to give it identity or form. Moreover and central to my point, is the inclusive notion of information as entity AND process. Such proviso allows for both the static and dynamic definitions we are currently seeing. In Ray's illustrative reference, the argument I propose is more akin to the Asian Tao, that of two seemingly dichotomized elements held together in a form of dynamic tension, opposite in identity yet one within the expanded perspective (or the big picture as Ray mentions). Here then we have X (entity) and Y (process), two views argued as THE view seemingly distinct in their difference yet bound together, chiefly because each contains something of the other. Outside this, is the human element offering reCognition, which pulls in what otherwise would be purely semantic (a tree falling in the forest so to speak). Thus information is not information without some form of cognition through whatever sense and at whatever level of consciousness(1). For such process gives information its entity status; yet, separated from the process, it does not exist, unless we allow for its state in a vacuum. This would deny however, the process required to give information an identity. Not rocket science perhaps, but a point of emphasis as we fumble for the perpetually elusive definition as such.

Additionally to note, is the continuing fog over the information/data (to) knowledge (to) wisdom business and the pros and cons of what constitutes an information professional, a knowledge worker and so on. Both of these two labels are steeped within the disciplines that extol them, that of LIS in the former and management science in the later and both, are constructions built upon various needs these disciplines do not always candidly acknowledge. In LIS, it is the continuing need for recognition, status, pay etc as information technology expands information awareness into increasing numbers of individuals' daily language and usage. In the business arena, it is the valuation of information(2) within the enterprise so increasingly enabled through IT, effecting decision making. The so-called commodification of information should continue to cause concern for us/those who champion ambitions of equal access etc., but as was part of the Gulf War PR, "freedom isn't free" (originally a poem I believe) and perhaps "information" will never be either. And wasn't this conflict referenced as the "first information war"? Ironic how SDI is both selective dissemination of information and Strategic Defense Initiative so referenced by the Reagan/Bush administrations.

Enough digression, I would recommend the following two articles to assist in the perspective building that is going on here. CRISTAL-ED remains a great place to kick these ideas around, but do not be misled to think that such discourse is not occurring far and wide as people try to peg what is going on here.

(1) Harmon, E. Glynn and Elissa R. Ballesteros. "Unconscious cognition: The Elicitation of deeply embedded information needs," pp. 422-433. In Information Seeking in Context: Proceedings of an International Conference on Research in Information Needs, Seeking and Use in Different Contexts, 14-16 August, 1996, Tampere, Finland / edited by Pertti Vakkari, Reijo Savolainen, and Brenda Dervin. London: Taylor Graham, 1997. (Abstracts from the '96 conference and preliminary program information for ISIC '98 at INTERNET.

(2) Curry, James. "The Dialectic of Knowledge-in-Production: Value Creation in Late Capitalism and the Rise of Knowledge-Centered Production." INTERNET.

Keith V. Trickey
Liverpool Business School
K.V.TRICKEY@livjm.ac.uk

Having a more practical basis I think the difference between a hedgehog and a fox is you can eat a hedgehog (I speak as a strict vegetarian). Now that may be useful as information or it may not -- but you need to wrap it in clay first and bake it on an open fire.

In terms of difference, we, as members of a species, are approximately 90 percent the same so the over-focus on difference could be part of the problem ie the creation of significant difference and then over-rating it by taking it out of the immediate context which makes that difference of interest.

Perhaps we are risking that with our professional focus... but I digress.

Bob Watson
Executive Director
Franklin Park Public Library District
10311 Grand Avenue
Franklin Park, IL 60131
(847) 455-6016
bwatson@linc.lib.il.us

There's been some comment questioning the need to define "information" differently, or more narrowly, than has generally been the case. I wish to make two points.

The first is simply that the folks involved in "Knowledge Management" and "Knowledge Ecology" are doing so, generally (it seems) along the lines which librarians have traditionally held to be "cataloging" (i.e., KM) and "reference" (i.e., KE). Folks using "information" are not necessarily using "books" except as the books may be the containers for "potential knowledge."

If we want to continue managing libraries, rather than their intellectual content, we might as well wish to wither away -- content is no longer tied to the page, if it ever was except as a vehicle.

The second is that we librarians have a long tradition, ourselves, of using "information" to mean the result of informing. Reference folk learned long ago that handing a book to someone doesn't insure that the contents are transferred to the reader. An interpretation, or an explanation, may be required. This requires an internalized knowledge on the reference librarian's part, which is obviously something "other" than the inked patterns on the page.

Ray McInnis
Western Washington University Library
Reference Department
rgmc@nas.com

Thinking about our discussion over the last two weeks on Friday, following the American Thanksgiving, I am left with the distinct impression that any discussion about the role of the concept "information," either in a discipline itself, or as a concept shared by several disciplines, will never be entirely settled. The "hedgehog vs. foxes" metaphor, as a means of characterizing the ambivalence toward the term, seems to fit the situation very well. If nothing else, our discussion unequivocally demonstrates that old adage about how "audience determines text", i.e., what is considered valid by one discourse community is not necessarily considered valid by another discourse community.

Leading this discussion has been an "education" for me. Before I started this discussion I was unaware, naively, of what can only be described as the "polarized" positions that, evidently, have always existed about "information."

Intellectually, my own background about "concepts," and how they function in scholarly inquiry, including a concept like information, is informed by the philosophy of science. I articulated my position most recently in Social Epistemology v 10, no. 1 (Jan Mar 1996). I was a guest editor for the issue of SE, and the theme "Discourse Synthesis," surely is an issue central to the production of knowledge. In the issue's introduction I took a stab at defining discourse synthesis by claiming that perhaps as well or better than any other, terms such as consensus and concept tell us that inquiry is a social system, that knowledge is socially constructed. Thus to understand the nature of inquiry in a particular discourse community we must look at its social dimensions, that is, the qualities of personal craftsmanship and community affiliation inherent in the work of scholars. As the "steward" of a body of knowledge, each discourse community maintains certain standards and norms. Community members share assumptions about what are appropriate "craft-quality" skills members should possess, as do practitioners in other types of work that demand a combination of applicable skill and creative thought. The craft-quality of inquiry refers to the personal autonomy and responsibility that an individual member of a discourse community exercises in conducting research. Matters agreed upon among members of discourse communities generally include what subject matter is appropriate for investigation and explanation, how that subject matter is examined, what constitutes evidence and, in discourse, what claims are valid.

From this personal understanding, again, evidently naively, I assumed that when it is used in discourse, a concept bears a meaning that reflects the consensus of the community of scholars in that specific field of inquiry. Now, after our CRISTAL-ED discussion, what can we conclude about "audience determining text"? Am I being too naive in assuming that even within a specific discourse community, "information" can be used as a concept in discourse, but that no agreed upon definition exists for it as a concept within that community? This conclusion, inevitably, brings me back to one of my original questions, "Is information a concept?"

Keith V. Trickey
k.v.trickey@livjm.ac.uk

Well, the knowledge management bait smoked out Tom Wilson, who seemed to have part of the limits but not the full scope of the debate.

To me there are four concepts to consider:

KNOWLEDGE

INFORMATION

DATA

Each is a meta tool to the one below it. To put it simply to work with data (to be a data manager) you need to use information handling skills (or be an information worker). To be an information manager you need to be a knowledge worker (ie be aware of what constitutes your knowledge tools).

So where does that leave our knowledge manager? I think the error Tom was referring to is the basic one in the library and information business that either more (ie a greater volume of work / transactions) or faster ( doing the same at machine rather than human speed) indicates work of a different type, when all it actually means is "more" or "faster."

I mentioned four terms. So what are the tools or what kind of worker is the knowledge manager -- my thought is they are a WISDOM worker. These are ideas I am still working on but the kind of explanation of "what is wisdom" hinges round several characteristics:

It is simple rather than complex (for example, Robert Dilts' map of problem types):
Simple Stable
Complex Unstable

(attempt to transform Complex to simple and Unstable to Stable -- then resolve a series of Simple Stable problems) -- it works on a longer time base than the other three -- it is already bedded in our professional activity.

Now an analysis of what constitutes the professional wisdom of our profession/trade could provide important clues to "who we are" and therefore what we can be and do in the future.

The other framework that would help as a sorting frame for this is:

Identity
Beliefs and values
Capabilities
Behavior
Environment

What we do (behavior) may evidence our wisdom (or lack of it) it does not constitute our wisdom.

Professor Tom Wilson
Head of Department of Information Studies
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN, U.K.
Voice: +44-114-282-5081
Fax: +44-114-278-0300
T.D.Wilson@Sheffield.ac.uk

I think the answer to the question "Is information a concept?" is, yes: but it is not a single concept -- it is many. It is many for the very good reason that their are many different "universes of discourse" that find the concept useful, but understand it in different ways. And, within the libary/information science sector, there not a single "community", but many. Certainly, this makes for problems in communication among closely allied sub-sectors, but we don't have any other word that is so hospitable to the attribution of different concepts, so I guess we just have to get on with using it and explaining what we mean when we do use it -- especially in communities outside those we normally inhabit.

Ben Speller
North Carolina Central University
SLIS
Durham, North Carolina
Speller@nccu.edu

It might have been interesting to spend some time on the assumptions that undergird conceptualization of the terms "information" and "knowledge." I wonder what might happen if we spent some time on "context."

Paul S. Piper
Western Washington University
Reference Librarian
College of Arts & Sciences
piper@cc.wwu.edu

As a new entrant onto this list I've enjoyed this information discussion, and found the list more passionate and fertile than many. A couple of comments:

The first is that "information," as has been pointed out by a number of contributors, is a polysemous term and relies heavily on context for its definition. This places emphasis on the clarity of context, which is not always clear. Robert W. Bauchspies, Jr.'s comments on the historical/political nature of the LIS's needs to solidify their role in the (culturally hot) information marketplace were extremely insightful. However, it is obvious that the context for information within the field of LIS has not been clarified. It is probably of some use for librarians ( and others in related fields) to concentrate on how *they* define both the context and "geology" of the term. The second point I wanted to make referred to the continuum of data --> information --> knowledge --> wisdom and the problematic nature of data.

Having worked recently in the field of humanitarian assistance I have witnessed first hand how subjective data is, and how it is continually manipulated for political and personal ends. The end results of some of this is intuitive, i.e. who actually believes that a number for population or infant mortality listed by an almanac is the exact number? It's obviously a statistical estimate. The same is true for many data elements. And thus, if the foundation for the continuum is shaky, how sound is the structure? Perhaps a key requirement of our profession is to demonstrate the subjectivity of information to our clients by offering them not the answer but the answers. And finally, foxes have learned how to tip hedgehogs over and eat them.

Robert Bauchspies
Middleburg, Virginia
Coordinator@foxcroft.org

I have not read the article yet but clearly the online tour de force for "trends" in "knowledge management" is with Yogesh Malhotra at:

http://www.brint.com/interest.html

Clearly the times for change in the educational landscape continue to catch our attention as "information-related" orientations by various departments and schools, be they sociology, psychology, business, computer science, informatics and so forth find new "sets" or "tracts" in which to emphasize. Albethis largely fed by developments with information technology, the activity represents profound shifts in traditional forms, across the border.

As with focus put to this forum re curriculum issues in the generic "information studies," it would be interesting to construct a discussion taking the knowledge management issue and combining it with overall trends in the academy where the tension between specialization and generalist graduate education, particularly with professional degrees is quite pronounced and what then should be the "vision" or "orientation," as well as the response from the library science camp. You could fold many themes into this discussion which would contribute to the big picture showing dichotomies between pragmatic "training" and new doctoral studies, not to mention MAs, MISs, etc.

Recently a prominent UK daily ran a story about "information professionals" and it echoed what librarians first felt regarding "end-user empowerment" via new ICTs (information and communication technologies). Now we see a scramble for who will dominate thinking in the information economy. One such "on the edge" example is with Booz, Allen & Hamilton's Value Engineering at:

http://www.bah.com

Recall the "Panda Syndrome" discussion here in earlier list sessions. What I am discovering however, is that library science in the IT age has more responsibility for itself than the rationale they quickly led to many institutions dropping the "L" word. Accusing others of "trendy" behavior then could perhaps become a "foot-to-mouth" sort of reflection.

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