The World of Information

I. Introduction
II. Information Defined
III. History
IV. Sources of Information
V. Issues Related to Information

I. Introduction:

"Humankind’s progress through the ages has been dependent on the creation, storage, and transmittal of information." p. 1

"The evolution of civilization is really the story of learning. Beginning with the infancy of the universe, the first inhabitants gathered and used information just as they gathered food and other essentials of life. With this knowledge base they were able to create new knowledge and to make advancements that changed the way they lived." ibid. v

Bolner, Myrtle S. and Gayle A. Poirier. The Research Process Books and Beyond. Dubuque, IO: Kendall/Hunt, 1997.

Information is power.  "He who runs the information, runs the show." Joseph Goebbels

As you will recall from your study of history, power resided with those individuals who knew when and where to plant, could predict seasonal changes, identify healing plants, and other information that they had learned from observation and experience. The shamans and priests of yesterday have become the scientists and doctors of today using information to enrich, change, and advance our lives.

II. Information Defined:

Can you touch it? How big is it? Do you use it up? What’s it worth? Where can you find it? What’s it made of? Is it dangerous?

Information has been defined in a variety of ways. Traditionally information was thought of as disjointed matters of fact: dates, names, numbers, and events.

Fritz Machlup divided information into two parts: 1. The verb inform, which is the telling of something; 2. The noun information that which is told. He said information is anything that is known by somebody. So the next question should be how do we know something. See "Sources of Information."

Information has also included the concept of the removal of uncertainty. (Weaver and Shannon)

Information is data that has value in making decisions. (Whittemore and Yovits) It would seem that the guy with all the facts would have an advantage in choosing the winning horse at the track.

In contemporary terms information has been defined as the number of bits being transmitted. It is just so many electronic impulses.

Does it have value? You betcha! Everyone has heard about the guy with "connections" who made a "killing" in the stock market.

Is it dangerous? Sometimes it sounds like it. Information explosion, flood of information, bombarded by information, information overload are some of the ways that people talk about information today. It sounds pretty sinister. How can we avoid being victims in this age of information. How can we eliminate information anxiety and turn information into a treasure house of answers, insights, and building blocks to knowledge and wisdom? This class will provide some strategies for harnessing information.

III. History of Information:

Generally when people write about the history of information, they describe the development of communicating and storing information. What follows is a link to an outline beginning with writing systems to the development of the book and the use of the computer to store and transmit information.

History of Information/Beck

Information Timeline

The history of information will vary depending on the discipline. Information is fluid beginning with the occurrence of an event or discovery. Man has gleaned information about living things by observing and measuring. Click on the following to see a chronology of significant historical developments in the biological sciences.

Biology Chronology

The history of information should be about the development of taxonomies, encyclopedias, classification systems, citations, access, indexes, and abstracts as well as all types of measuring devices and observational tools like telescopes and carbon dating. These are some of the tools and systems that have made it possible to gather and organize information. We will be learning more about the organizing tools for information throughout this course.

IV. Sources of Information:

Fritz Machlup said information is anything that is known by somebody. We may then ask, "How does man know?"

Philosophers have contemplated man’s way of knowing throughout the ages. We know from experience. If we touch a hot stove, it will burn us. We know from disciplined observation. The moon waxes and wanes on a regular cycle. These ways of knowing are rational and logical such as the employment of the scientific method.

Man also knows based on intuition, imagination, and creativity. Information from these sources is often contained in the arts--a musical score, a painting.

One also knows based "on good authority." I know there will be a low tide at 7:15 p.m. because I read it in the tide calendar. I know that eating peas is good for me because I read it in a report published by the National Health Institute.

There are many definitions of information as we have seen earlier. Generally these definitions include the communication of data. There are many ways to transmit information. They may include:

The transmission of data is made possible by a variety of hardware. They may include:

Following is an overview of the use of a variety of print formats:

The Print Industry includes books, magazines, journals, and newspapers. Paper and a written language are the requirements for the world of print to flourish. As you read in the "Brief History of Information," prior to the use of paper, western cultures with an established written language used a variety of materials such as clay and sheep and goat skin to record information. With the invention of the printing press in Germany in the mid-1400s the growth of the printed word increased substantially. Today’s electronic distribution of information has led people to predict that the use of paper and the printed word will decrease and perhaps be eliminated.

The following numbers demonstrate that this prediction has not yet come to pass: (Bowker)

Although there are magazines which now appear only in electronic form, the printed version of the magazine continues to grow. There are new magazines introduced all the time as well as the introduction of zines. About one million magazine articles are printed every year on a variety of topics. There are more than 80,000 scientific journals published worldwide. As you can see in the chart above, the number of hours spent in reading books has increased slightly from 1990 to 1997 but the number of hours spent reading consumer magazines is ". . . gently downward from ninety hours per person in 1990 to eighty-one hours in 1997." (Rubin, p. 6)

"Historically the newspaper has been a popular source of print information. Therefore it is interesting that newspapers are only one of the few media that have not experienced an increase in use. Daily newspaper circulation has remained flat or declined slightly when compared to 1990 data. In addition, the average person reads the daily newspaper about 161 hours per year compared to 175 in 1990." (Rubin, p. 9) Can you speculate why this phenomenon is occurring. What evidence have you seen in the decline of the newspaper?

Electronic Sources of Information:

"Nearly 94 percent of all households in the United States have telephones." (Rubin, p. 9) Although this is not an information source, we know that it is a valuable tool for transmitting information either by voicemail, e-mail, or computer data via the Internet.

Radio and television are also significant distributors of information. The average American household has more than five radios in addition to all the automobiles with radios. The average American home owns two television sets. Where can you discover the number of hours of television viewing, the type of programs watched and by which age and gender?

Of course the Internet is called the Information Superhighway. How many people in America have computers? How many are connected to the Internet? How many webpages containing information are located on the Internet?

V. Issues related to Information:

As we move into the information age, many new fields of study have appeared related to information. There is now a sociology of communication and information, a Center for Social Informatics which looks at the role of information technology in social change, and the study of Information technology just to name a few. Scholars, politicians, and ordinary citizens are concerned about a variety of issues related to the burgeoning world of information.

1. Privacy-Everytime you buy something at the grocery store with your store clubcard a computer registers your purchase.

2. Censorship-Headline states "Library is Sued Over Boy’s Access to Pornography."

3. Copyright-When does protection of intellectual property interfere with fair use and the development of new knowledge?

4. Digital Divide-There is a growing disparity between the rich and the poor to Interent access.

5. Computer Crime-Hackers break into sensitive military and government sites.

6. Encryption

7. Preservation

8. Access

9. On-line Hate Groups