A conceptual framework for information management ...eprints.qut.edu.au/16305/1/Michael_Middleton_Thesis.pdf · A conceptual framework for information management: formation of a discipline

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

Conceptual framework for information management i

Keywords

Information management; discipline formation; information services; case studies;

bibliographic databases; Australia.

Conceptual framework for information management ii

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.

• 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.

• 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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Abstract) iii

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) iv

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 v

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. Defining the information professions........................................................................................... 30 2.3.2. Education for the professions ....................................................................................................... 33

2.4. Information science ............................................................................................................ 36 2.4.1. Definitions of information............................................................................................................ 36 2.4.2. Elements of information science .................................................................................................. 39

2.5. Information management as practice................................................................................. 43 2.6. Information management as discipline .............................................................................. 47 2.7. Summary and focus of study............................................................................................... 49

CHAPTER 3: EXPRESSING INFORMATION MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES ........................ 51 3.1. Information management Book preliminaries ................................................................... 51 3.2. Information management Book chapter: ‘Introduction’.................................................... 54 3.3. Information management Book chapter: ‘Information in organisations’ excerpt............. 75 3.4. Information management Book chapter: Operational domain.......................................... 85 3.5. Information management Book chapter: Analytical domain........................................... 102 3.6. 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. Book chapter: Drops in the ocean: the development of … STI in Australia.................... 155 5.2. Journal article: Australian STI services history and development.................................. 171

CHAPTER 6: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT DISCIPLINE FORMATION IN STI .......... 201 6.1. Journal article: single case study IM and STI services.................................................... 201 6.2. 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

Conceptual framework for information management vi

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. Achievements of research program ................................................................................. 317 9.2. Methodological critique................................................................................................... 320 9.3. Problems encountered...................................................................................................... 321 9.4. Limitations........................................................................................................................ 322 9.5. Further research directions ............................................................................................. 322 9.6. Significance and conclusion ............................................................................................ 324

REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................ 327

Conceptual framework for information management vii

Table of illustrations

Figure title Thesis section Figure number (parent document)

Page

Outline of research process Chapter 1 1.1 9 Examples of information organisation Chapter 3.2 1.1 57 Information management tasks associated with records

Chapter 3.2 1.2 61

Contemporary information management applications Chapter 3.2 1.3 68 Levels of information management Chapter 3.2 1.4 72 Enterprise responsibility for information Chapter 3.3 4.3 77 Environmental scanning Chapter 3.3 4.4 80 Scanning modes Chapter 3.3 4.5 81 Organising animals Chapter 3.4 10.1 90 Taxonomic classification for koala Chapter 3.4 10.2 91 Extract from 1997 U.S. NAICS Codes and Titles Chapter 3.4 10.3 92 Records and information management classification scheme for filing

Chapter 3.4 10.4 93

Extract from U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration classification scheme for …

Chapter 3.4 10.5 94

LC Classification Scheme outline of main classes Chapter 3.4 10.6 94 Extract from LC Classification outline Class J Chapter 3.4 10.7 96 Extract from Dutch Electronic Subject Service site using classified arrangement

Chapter 3.4 10.8 101

IRDS evaluation schema Chapter 3.5 18.1 114 Checklist for HCI evaluation Chapter 3.5 18.2 126 Website evaluation Chapter 3.5 18.3 127 Information policy components Chapter 3.6 20.5 131 Planning matrix for information policy implementation

Chapter 3.6 20.6 132

ENGINE record Chapter 5.2 1 190 Example of AESIS record Chapter 6.1 1 215 AESIS overall functional format Chapter 6.1 2 217 Information management framework Chapter 9.5 9.1 323

Table title Thesis section Table number (parent document)

Page

Example findings on the ability of scientists to find information

Chapter 5.1 1 161

Australian STI databases Chapter 5.2 1 185 Record counts by publication year Chapter 5.2 2 187 ATRI document types Chapter 5.2 3 190 Informit elements for ATRI and ANSTI Chapter 5.2 4 194 Database information management Chapter 6.1 1 209 Australian STI databases Chapter 6.1 2 211 AESIS milestones Chapter 6.1 3 217 Extract from AGLS reference description of NAA Chapter 8.1 13.1 293 Website evaluation criteria based upon FAVORS Chapter 8.1 13.2 304 Corporate policy constituents Chapter 8.1 13.3 311

Conceptual framework for information management viii

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

in press

Scientific and technological information services in Australia. II.

Discipline formation in information management. Australian

Academic and Research Libraries 37(3)

[ISSN 0004-8623].

Conceptual framework for information management ix

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 twenty-

first 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., &

Middleton, M.

2003 Integrative document and content management: strategies for

exploiting enterprise knowledge. Hershey, PA, USA: Idea

Group.

[ISBN 1-59140-055-4(h/c); eISBN 1-59140-068-6].

Redlich, L.,

Gersekowski, P., &

Middleton, M.

2006

Natural resource information management at state government

level. In A.-V. Anttiroiko & M. Mälkiä (Eds.),

Encyclopedia of digital government (Vol. III, pp. 1226-

1234) Hershey, USA: Idea Group Reference.

[ISBN 1-59140-789-3].

Asprey, L. &

Middleton, M.

2005 Integrative document and content management solutions. In 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 x

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: _______________________________

Conceptual framework for information management xi

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.

Conceptual framework for information management xii

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 1: Introduction) 1

C h a p t e r 1 : I n t r o d u c t i o n

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.


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.


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.


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


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.


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.


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 sub-

questions:

• 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.


• 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:


Figure 1.1: Outline of research process

Examine relevant disciplines

Establish research questions

Define approach

Establish research context

Literature review

Chapter 6 (discipline)

Chapter 4 (NLW) Establish

discipline context

Compare domains and practice

Chapter 3 (IM book)

Review research context

Review research questions

Establish protocol

First STI case

Chapter 5 STI history

Repeat cases STI services

IM and library environment

Disciplinary framework comparison

Chapter 7 (framework)

)

Chapter 8 (libraries)

Chapter 5 (STI history)

Chapter 6 (discipline)

Chapter 3 (IM book)

Chapter 3 (IM book)

Chapter 3 (IM book)


• 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.


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


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


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


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.


• 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:


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:


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.


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.


• 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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 2: Literature review) 21

C h a p t e r 2 : L i t e r a t u r e r e v i e w

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


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.


• 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


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.


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.


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


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.


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


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).


• 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


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.


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 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..

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 re-

evaluation of the paradigm by which information professionals are defined, and in


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.


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.


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.


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


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 ‘re-

inforcement 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 self-

contained 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).


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-as-

thing; 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 data-

knowledge 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


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.


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).


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


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


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


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.


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.


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


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


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.


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.

• 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


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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.1: Book preliminaries) 51

C h a p t e r 3 : E x p r e s s i n g i n f o r m a t i o n

m a n a g e m e n t p r i n c i p l e s

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:

• Part A: An overview that includes chapters on the information professions,

information science and information as a focus within organisations.

• Part B: Operational information management - 10 chapters examining the way

information management is undertaken organised according to a continuum or

life cycle.

• Part C: Analytical information management - 4 chapters examining analytical

aspects, in particular user needs analysis, information resources analysis, systems

analysis and evaluation.


• 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.


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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.2: Book excerpt: Ch1: Introduction) 54

3.2. Information management Book chapter: ‘Introduction’

This publication extract is the Introduction from the Information Management

book, viz:


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).


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


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.


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)


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.


• 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.


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


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


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 <www.bibalex.gov.eg>.

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’.


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.


• 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.


• 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


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


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.


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


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/


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/


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


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.


• 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


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


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).

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.3: Excerpt from Book Ch 4: Information in organisations) 75

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.:



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.


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.


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 RESPONSIBILITY

INFORMATION SOURCES

SOFTWARE SUPPORT

INTERNAL Highly structured

Information systems department

Transaction processes Organisational units

Process control Database Management Systems Management Information Systems

INTERNAL Less structured

Records management Archives Document management Word processing Files control Knowledge management

Corporate documents: • policy statements • memoranda • mail • printed forms

Lessons leaned files Expertise collections

Word processing Document management Office automation Text retrieval Data mining Micrographics Optical digital storage Reprographics

EXTERNAL Highly structured

Business analysis Statistics unit

Public databases Internet

Online numerical databases

CD databases Public networks Time-sharing services

EXTERNAL Less Structured

Library Business intelligence unit Strategic planning support

News services Films Printed publications Internet

Automated library systems Online catalogues Environmental scanning Current awareness services Monitoring services Videotex systems Push technology

Figure 4.3: Enterprise responsibility for information


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.


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.


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.


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 REGULAR CONTINUOUS

STIMULUS Crisis initiated Decision and issue oriented

Planning process oriented

OPERATION Ad hoc Periodically updated Structured data collection and processing

SOURCES Primarily people, some documentary

Documentary & personal Primarily documentary, some personal

SCOPE Specific identified matters of interest, primarily POMP

Specific identified matters of interest, POMP and STEP

Environment in general, primarily STEP

INDUCEMENT Reactive Proactive Proactive INFORMATION COLLECTION

Retrospective Primarily current Prospective

DECISION TIME Current and near-term future

Near-term Long-term

ORGANISATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION

A variety of different participants

A variety of different participants

Unit dedicated to the 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:


• 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 and implementing an integrated organisational

information strategy to disseminate 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:


- 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


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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.4: Excerpt from Book Ch 10: Control … content) 85

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.:



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.


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


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...’


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.


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!


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


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 Animalia Phylum Chordata Class Mammalia Subclass Marsupialia Order Diprotodonta Family Phascolarctidae Genus Phascolarctos Species 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


enlightenment, and he gives an example of the priorities and worldview expressed in an

Islamic encyclopaedia of Ibn Qutayba c.828:

1. Power 6. Asceticism 2. War 7. Friendship 3. Nobility 8. Prayers 4. Character 9. Food 5. Learning and eloquence 10. 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 Specialized Design Services 54141 Interior Design Services 54142 Industrial Design Services 54143 Graphic Design Services 54149 Other Specialized Design Services 5415 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 Other Computer Related Services 5416 Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services 54161 Management Consulting Services 541611 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


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.

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

Human resources HR

Personnel HR-1

Appraisal HR-2

In-service HR-3

Loadings HR-8

In-service HR-3: Kaminsky, Rolf

#245-1235

In-service HR-3: Lee, Bing #243-0014

Top level

2nd level

Base level


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.osha-slc.gov/OshDoc/Directive_data/ADM_12_1_CH-8.html

A -- GENERAL WORKS B -- 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


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 self-

evident 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


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 General legislative and executive papers Subclass JA Political science (general) Subclass JC Political theory Subclass JF Political institutions and public administration – General Subclass JK Political institutions and public administration – United

States Subclass JL Political institutions and public administration – Canada,

West Indies, Mexico, Central and South America Subclass JN Political institutions and public administration – Europe Subclass JQ Political institutions and public administration – Asia, Arab

countries, Islamic countries, Africa, Atlantic Ocean islands, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Ocean islands

Subclass JS Local government. Municipal government Subclass JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration.

International migration Subclass JX International law, see KZ (obsolete) Subclass JZ International relations

Figure 10.7a: Extract from LC Classification outline Class J – Political science

Subclass JC JC11-(607) Political theory JC11-(607) State. Theories of the state JC47 Oriental state JC49 Islamic state JC51-93 Ancient state JC109-121 Medieval state JC131-273 Modern state JC177-(178) Thomas Paine JC311-314 Nationalism. Nation state JC319-323 Political geography JC327 Sovereignty JC328.2 Consent of the governed JC328.6 Violence. Political violence JC329 Patriotism JC345-347 Symbolism JC348-497 Forms of the state JC(501)-(607) Purpose, functions, and relations of the state

Figure 10.7b: Extract from LC Classification outline Class J – Political science


• 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.


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,


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 Philosophy and theory -03 Dictionaries, encyclopaedias, concordances -05 Serial publications -06 Organisations -07 Study and teaching -08 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


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


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 schemes is at

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/CTW.htm

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.5: Excerpt from Book Ch 18: Evaluation) 102

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.:



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.


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


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.


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


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:


- 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


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.


• 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,


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.


• 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


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.


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),


Criteria/ Sub-criteria

Weight x Score Sum Weighted score

1.0 Ability to capture core entity structure; W=0.13 1.1 Data Entities 0.58 x 8 = 4.64 1.2 System Entities 0.22 x 7 = 1.54 1.3 External entities 0.20 x 6 = 1.20 Weighted criteria score 0.13 x 7.38 0.96 2.0 Ability to capture core attribute structure; W=0.13 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 Weighted criteria score 0.13 x 7.52 0.98 3.0 Ability to capture core E-R properties; W=0.13 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 Weighted criteria score 0.13 x 6.39 0.83 4.0 Extensibility support; W=0.12 4.1 Add/Update/Delete Entity-types 0.34 x 9 = 3.06 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 Weighted criteria score 0.12 x 9.00 1.08 5.0 Data Documentation & versioning support; W=0.11 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 Weighted criteria score 0.11 x 6.80 0.75 6.0 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 Weighted criteria score 0.10 x 8.00 0.80 7.0 Integrity support; W=0.09 7.1 Provision of Edit and Validation fns 0.34 x 9 = 3.06 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 Weighted criteria score 0.09 x 9.00 0.81 8.0 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 0.33 x 8 = 2.64 Weighted criteria score 0.10 x 8.00 0.80

9.0 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 Weighted criteria score 0.09 x 8.00 0.72 TOTAL 7.73

Figure 18.1: IRDS evaluation schema, adapted from Bordoloi et al (1994, pp. 13-14) © Idea Group Publishing


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


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.


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!


• 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).


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.


• 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


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


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’.


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.


• 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.


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?


• Can an index be browsed for selection of terms?

• Is the user told how to exit functions and backup through screens?

Consistency of Always Most of time

Some of time

Never Comments

1. Colours use (eg error indicators) 2. Abbreviations, acronyms etc 3. Icons, symbols, graphics 4. Instruction presentation, location,

layout

5. Cursor initial position 6. Information display format 7. Information entry format 8. Information entry method 9. Cursor movement 10. Option selection 11. Function key use 12. Standard operational procedure 13. Response to user action 14. Other comments 15. Overall rating Very

satisfactory Moderately satisfactory

neutral Moderately unsatisfactory

Very 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.


Criterion Factors Examples of checks Functionality Active links - 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? Errors in

markup - Are scripting characters inadvertently displayed by the browser? - Does the page partially load and then provide warning prompts?

Help - Does assistance include links to explanatory material or alternative language entry? Layout - 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?

Search facility - Is a search engine incorporated, focussing on retrieval of material from the site itself? Site maps - Is there a summary of site organisation by showing broad categories of pages? Text for

images - 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?

Authority Affiliation - Do the authors indicate who their employer is? - Is an organisation responsible for governance of the site?

Copyright - Is a copyright indication displayed and in what authority does it reside? - Do the metadata include a rights management statement?

Creators - Does someone claim responsibility and provide address information for the page? - Do the metadata indicate the page creators in the CREATOR or CONTRIBUTOR

tags? Credentials - Does the author indicate academic qualifications? Editorial - Is there an editorial process indicated for vetting the contents?

- Is there an editorial policy available at the site? Funding - Is a financial source indicated?

- For a commercial site, is the sponsoring associated with the type of product being sold?

Viability - How long has the page been in existence? - Is it indicated (such as in a metatag) when page goes out of date?

Validity Feedback - Does the site carry reports of positive impressions or endorsements by others? Rating - Does the site have any awards? Refereed

content - Does the site indicate which of its content is refereed?

Referring links

- How many other sites provide links to this one?

Review - Has the site been positively reviewed? Usage - Does the site report usage figures with a counter or graphics? Obtainability Cost - Is access to site available only on a fee paying basis? Format

support - Does the site display all aspects on your browser? - Does the site require 'plugins' for full functionality?

Load factors - Are you always able to link to the site? - If the site provides a database, does it indicate how many concurrent users carried?

Metadata - Does the site have a <TITLE> in the <HEAD> area? - Does the site utilise a metadata convention such as AGLS or Dublin Core?

Naming - Does the site have a URL and domain naming that may easily be recalled? Security - Is there password protection for areas of the site?

- Is there a site certificate check? Speed - How quickly does the site load?

- Can you revert to text-only display and still use the site effectively? Relevance Audience - Is the site directed at a particular user community, and is this stated?

- Is the site complementary to other resources for a particular group? Balance - Are different sides of arguments or competing viewpoints represented?

- Is advertising clearly differentiated from information content? Breadth - Is there too much material on the site for easy reference? Controversial

content - Are there warnings that the site may be unsuitable for minors? - Does the site request age to be stated before proceeding?

Currency - Is there an indication of when it was last updated? - Is there an indication of how frequently it is updated?

Depth - Is there a description at the top-level page of how much more material is to follow? Substance Accuracy - How does the site measure up against similar sources of known information?

- Is information free of typer- (oops) typographical and spelling errors? Coverage - Is an indication given of the time period that is covered?

- Is content confined to particular geographic areas? Detail - 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 Evidence - Are statements supported by illustrations or quoted sources or linked Websites? Explanation - Are links to other sites accompanied by an explanation of purpose? Readability - Is the grammar correct? Figure 18.3: Website evaluation

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 3.6: Excerpt from Book Ch 20: Corporate information policy) 128

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.



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.


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.


• 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.


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.

Figure 20.5: Information policy components

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 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


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 Operational Business processes Establish corporate

structure, mission & objectives

Create business units and strategy

Establish products and services

Data Link data planning to business information needs

Manage shared data as 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 develop and maintain rolling replacement plans

Install computers and networks for wide and local areas as appropriate Apply standards

Assure uninterrupted service levels and software support

Communications Plan corporate policy Undertake communications audits

Facilitate knowledge-sharing

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


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 decision-

making, 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


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


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,


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 ‘information-

based’, 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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 4.1: New Library World paper) 137

C h a p t e r 4 : T e r m i n o l o g y u s e d b y i n f o r m a t i o n p r o f e s s i o n a l s

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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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 Related Terms Information professionals [+] Librarians Paraprofessionals [+]

1 Online with the database on CSA’s LISA database service 12th January 2004.


Similarly, in identifying what these people do, LISA differentiates between

information science and librarianship.

Library and information science Use For Information science and librarianship

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.


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 Used for: Information managers; Programmers;

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.


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 Scope Note: Individuals who observe, measure, and

describe the behavior of information, as well as those who organize information and provide services for its use

BT Professional Personnel

NT Librarians Add Date: 07/01/1966 Search

Intermediaries 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 Search conducted on complete EBSCONet ERIC database as of 12th January, 2004. 4 Now the American Society for Information Science & Technology.


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

Broader Term organization of information

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


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 liability, professional

indexing Years in use 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.


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) NT Indexers Librarians

Business professionals (local) UF Businessmen

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


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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Australian Register of Archives and Manuscripts, Retrieved 12th January, 2004, from

http://www.ericfacility.net/extra/pub/thessearch.cfm

OECD macrothesaurus, (1991), OECD, Paris.


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), 311-

329.

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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 5.1: STI history book contribution) 155

C h a p t e r 5 : H i s t o r i c a l a s p e c t s o f S T I s e r v i c e s

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.


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


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:


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.


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


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).


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 lower-

impact 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


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


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)


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


network that would produce STI current-awareness bulletins and develop an industry-

reports 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).


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:


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 CD-

ROM 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).


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.


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


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.

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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. 139-

148). 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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 5.2: AARL STI-I) 171

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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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 lower-

impact 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.


• 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.


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.


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.


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 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.

28 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.

29 Australian Department of Science A national information policy for Australia: Discussion paper Dept of Science Canberra 1985.

30 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.


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.


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/


Table 1: Australian STI databases Earth sciences Engineering Health sciences Present name Georef (Aust component) Engine AMI(includes HEAPS) Commenced As AESIS 1976 1982 1983 Producer AMF 1976-2001

Geoscience Australia 2003 - Institution of Engineers, Australia

NLA

Subject matter Earth sciences Engineering Health & medicine Coverage (1907-)1975 – 2001 1980 1968 Annual size ~4,000 ~1300 ~2,000 Overseas material

About Australia 1979 - No About Australia; by Australians

Types of documents

BCDJMRRTS BCGJNRT BCJPRV

Vendors AUSINET CLIRS INFORMIT AMF

AUSINET 1983-1987 AUSTRALIS 1987 - OZLINE Informit

Aust Medline network OZLINE Informit

International ties

No No Medline complementary some overlap 2001 -

Vocabulary control

Australian geoscience, minerals and petroleum thesaurus

SHE: subject headings for engineering - 1993 Ei 1993 -

MeSH

Current awareness

AESIS quarterly AESIS special lists

No Tailored searches

Other outputs AESIS cumulation - fiche Retrospective list series

No Bibliographies

Full text No No Meditext link 1996-

Key for types of documents A Audio recordings G Government papers O Ongoing research T Theses B Books J Journal articles P Pamphlets/posters V Visual media B Book reviews L Legislation R Reports: technical, grey W Websites C Conference papers M Maps R Reports – open-file D Digital data & software N News items S Standards/specifications

Table 1 (Continued): Australian STI databases

Natural resources Nuclear Transport Present name AANRO ANSTI ATRI Commenced ABOA 1975 (FROM AGRIS),

Streamline 1982 1972 1977

Creators CSIRO (ABOA) Dept Resources, Energy (Streamline) Infoscan for AANRO

AAEC, ANSTO ARRB group. Formerly ARRB until 1995, then ARRB Transport Research ltd.

Subject matter

Agriculture, water resources Nuclear science & engineering Road research

Coverage from

1941 - 1970 1975

Annual size ~5,000-6000 ~800-1000 ~1600 Overseas material

About Australia No Yes (from?)

Types of documents

BCDJMOPRTV BCDGJMRTS BCDJORST

Vendors AUSINET 1983 AUSTRALIS Streamline (WATR)Informit

Streamline 1992 – ABOA 1996 -

Infoscan 1999 -

ANSTO Informit

AUSINET 1978-1982 AUSTRALIS (INROADS) OZLINE Informit

International ties

ABOA subset for Australian component of AGRIS

Australian component of INIS 30% of ARI goes IRRD

Vocabulary control

CAB thesaurus AGRIS categorization AGDEX adapted Aqualine thesaurus (Streamline)

INIS thesaurus IRRD thesaurus ATRI thesaurus

Current awareness

Streamline update Tailored searches Australian Road Index Australian Road Research ARRB Publications Index

Other outputs Annual bibliographies .. ABOA Water research in Australia (from Streamline)

No Thesaurus for ATRI

Full text Some links to web material No No


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.


Table 2: Record counts by publication year38 (Informit 27.02.06)

Year ENGINE AMI ANR-I ANSTI ATRI Other; prior 18860 44364 89866 15939 79659

1992 486 3868 6105 989 8029

1993 3256 4196 5952 868 7104

1994 2075 5049 5904 1398 6552

1995 1206 5156 4855 1341 5373

1996 1777 4585 4905 984 5188

1997 545 5441 5636 467 4682

1998 998 5004 5723 536 4916

1999 1630 4404 5512 943 4145

2000 1433 4104 4826 1995 5253

2001 1057 4943 3694 1160 4465

2002 712 6288 1826 1698 4188

2003 762 5454 3001 1790 4110

2004 526 5623 2302 448 4321

2005 137 4689 472 1 2182

2006 - 20 - - 36

Total 35460 113,188 150579 30,557 150,203

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]


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


• 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 to Australasian Medical Index 2002

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].


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) 39927 Audiovisual 134 Book 820 Chapter (Book) 52 Conference Paper 34499 Journal 1416 Conference Proceedings

3497

Research Report 15697 Standard 1497 Statistics 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


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.


• 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 phrase-

searchable.

• 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:


• 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 up-

posting.

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.


Table 4: Informit elements for ATRI and ANSTI (28.02.06)

Label Field Name Database AB Abstract Both ABI Abstract Indicator Both ABL Abstract Language ATRI AC Australian Coverage ATRI BL Bibliographic Level ATRI C1 Subject (Primary Category Code) ANSTI CA Corporate Author Both CA Corporate Author ANSTI CN Name Of Conference ATRI CPF Publication Frequency ATRI DN Document Number ATRI DT Document Type ATRI DT Document Type ANSTI GL Geographic Location ATRI HS Holdings Statement ATRI IB ISBN Both ID Identifier ATRI IRF Issue Both IS ISSN Both JT Journal Title Both LA Language Both LL Library Location ATRI NT Notes Both PA Personal Author Both PD Date Of Publication Both PG Pagination Both PP Place Of Publication ATRI PU Name Of Publisher ATRI PY Publication Year Both RPN Report/Patent Number ANSTI RSO Record Source Both SE Series Both SO Source Both SCC Subject (Category Code) ANSTI SU Subject Both SS Search Subjects ANSTI SUC Subject (Category) ANSTI SUP Subject (Proposed) ANSTI TI Title Both URI Uniform Resource Identifier ATRI URII Uri Indicator ATRI VRF Volume 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.


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.


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 public-

private 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 money-

making 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.


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]


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


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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 6.1: IM discipline: JIISIT AESIS article) 201

C h a p t e r 6 : I n f o r m a t i o n m a n a g e m e n t d i s c i p l i n e f o r m a t i o n i n S T I

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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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


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;


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.


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;

- Extension of this overview through detailed investigation to take

account of public policy influences and corporate imperatives;

- 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;

- Analytical aspects referring to user needs and systems analysis;

information resources analysis including audits and assessing

information worth; and evaluation procedures;

- Administrative aspects referring to policy and planning aspects and

strategic approaches in general.


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


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


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.

AESIS AMI (includes HEAPS) ENGINE Commenced 1976 1983 1982 Creators Australian Mineral Foundation NLA Inst. of Engineers, Australia Subject matter Earth sciences Health & medicine Engineering Coverage (1907-)1975 – 2001 1968 1980 Annual size ~4,000 ~2,000 No Overseas material

About Australia 1979 - About Australia; by Australians ~1300

Types of documents

BCDJMRrTS BCJPRV BCGJNRT

Vendors Ausinet; CLIRS Informit, AMF

Aust Medline network Informit

Australis Informit

International ties

No Some Medline overlap 2001- No

Vocabulary control

AGMP thesaurus MeSH SHE: subject Headings for Engineering – 1993; Ei 1993-

Current awareness

AESIS quarterly AESIS special lists

Tailored searches No

Other outputs AESIS cumulation - fiche Retrospective list series

Bibliographies No

Full text No Meditext link 1996- No Table 2: Australian STI databases


Key for types of documents A Audio recordings J Journal articles R Reports: technical, grey B Books L Legislation r Reports – open-file b Book reviews M Maps S Standards/specifications C Conference papers N News items T Theses D Digital data & software O Ongoing research V Visual media G Government papers P Pamphlets/posters W 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.


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 non-

Australian 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


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.


• 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-J-McG 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-surveys-SA; Ground-magnetic-surveys; Remote-areas; Deserts-; Productivity-; Surveying-; Navigation-; Line-location-maps; Seismic-traverses; Base-line; Magnetic-survey-methods; Magnetic-survey-equipment; Proton-precession-magnetometers; Principles-; Field-instruments; Magnetic-field-intensity; Diurnal-variation; 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


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).


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.


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 un-

economic 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


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.


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 trade-

offs 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.


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 semi-

annual 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.


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.

References

Abbott, A. D. (1988). The system of professions: an essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago, Il,

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SAGE Publications.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 6.2: AARL STI II) 225

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).


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.


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.


• 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.


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.


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 pp266-276.

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.


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 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.

14 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.

15 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.


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 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

17 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]

18 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/).


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 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 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


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 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.

21 J Frishammar Characteristics in information processing approaches International Journal of Information Management vol 22 no 2 2002 pp143-156.


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 M Middleton 2002 op cit pp13-14 23 M Middleton 2002 op cit pp22-28 for examples 24 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/


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


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 like-

minded 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.


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 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.

26 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.


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 M G Lay The ARRB information system Australian Road Research Board Vermont South 1979

(ATM No. 7). 28 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.


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.


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


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 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).

30 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.


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

in directories. (S. Quinn, personal communication, 22nd 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


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


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.


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


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


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


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.


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.


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


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


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.

Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 7.1: IJIM Frameworks) 253

C h a p t e r 7 : I n f o r m a t i o n m a n a g e m e n t f r a m e w o r k

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.



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.


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.


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).


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 meta-

discipline 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


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


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


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.


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 pre-

existing 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


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


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


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


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.


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


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


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.


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


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


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.


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.


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.


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


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.


• 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.


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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Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 8.1: Library context) 281

C h a p t e r 8 : I n f o r m a t i o n m a n a g e m e n t i n l i b r a r y c o n t e x t

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.


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.


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


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.


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:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Resource evaluation, by determining not just the economic and intellectual

worth of material in library collections, but through audit of enterprise-wide

information sources.

• 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.

• 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.

• Preservation, not only of physical collections, but through development and

application of digital preservation and security procedures.

• Policy, not confined to such repository matters as collection and use policy,

but more broadly applied to corporate information policy.


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


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.


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:

• Capability of undertaking authoring without reference to underlying mark-

up.

• Templates and style sheets that separate content and presentation.

• Metadata creation.

• Interactive help utilities that guide users through complex tasks (wizards).

• 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:

• Integrated authoring environment for utilisation and incorporation of digital

data representing image, sound or text from outside sources.


• Inclusion of multiple contributions through devices like bulletin boards.

• Database interfaces that provide for a single source of re-usable content.

• Maintaining links despite restructuring and presentation in different contexts.

• 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:

• A repository that locks pages in use and provides for utilisation of fragments

of documents.

• Versioning that supports sole use of a current version (integrity), along with

control for recovery and accountability.

• Security through access levels and audit trails.

• Workflow support through association with other business systems within a

framework that is adaptable to change in organisational processes.

• 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


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.


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:

• 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).


• 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).

• 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.


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-MM-DD format.

Qualifiers

Qualifier Name: created

Label: Created

Qualifier Type: element refinement

Definition: Creation date of the resource.

Qualifier Name: modified

Label: Modified


Definition: Modification date of the resource.

Qualifier Name: valid

Label: Valid


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


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:

• COFOG: Classification Of the Functions Of Government, one of many

schemes maintained by the UN, in this case to categorise expenditure


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.

• 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


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.


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


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


‘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.


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


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’.


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


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:

• Data entities such as elements, tables, rows, and keys.

• System entities such as programs and modules.

• External entities such as description of people, documents and devices.

• Identification attributes such as naming along with synonyms or aliases.

• Representation attributes such as data type or number of characters in an

element.

• Control attributes such as ownership – who is allowed to change data

instances for an element.

• 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.

• Subtype or subsumption relationships that indicate whether one entity is a

part of another, for example a sedan is a subtype of car.


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:

• Validate the operator as a user who is allowed to enter postcodes.

• Have a postcode data element of a limited number of characters.

• Allow postcodes to appear only within the numerical range associated with

the country of instance.

• Provide a picklist of allowed postcodes from a scrollable dialogue box for

the data element.

• Provide alternative names to be used for the element (e.g. zipcode) by

operators in different countries.

• 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


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; Breadth; Controversial content; Currency; Depth.

Substance Accuracy; Coverage; Detail; Evidence; Explanation; Readability.


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.


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.


• 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


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;


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.


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.


• 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.


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.


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.

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Conceptual framework for information management (Chapt 9: Discussion) 317

C h a p t e r 9 : D i s c u s s i o n a n d c o n c l u s i o n s

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


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.


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


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


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.


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


expected that discipline formation will be subject to rolling review and re-

interpretation 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


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.


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 (References) 327

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