10 Myths about Information and Information Seeking

In Donald O. Case's (2007) Looking for Information, he introduces readers to Professor Brenda Dervin from Ohio State University and her list of the 10 "dubious assumptions" related to information and information seeking. Although this "top ten" does indeed deal with information seeking, it still remains pertinent to information retrieval, and so I include here, for our reading pleasure:

1. Only 'objective' information is valuable.
"For most tasks and decisions in life, people tends to settle for the first satisfactory solution to a problem, rather than the best solution" (p. 8).

2. More information is always better.
"Typically there is not a problem getting enough information but rather with interpreting and understanding what information there is" (p. 8).

3. Objective information can be transmitted out of context.
"But people tend to ignore isolated facts when they cannot form a complete picture of them" (p.8).

4. Information can only be acquired through formal sources.
"This assumption, often made by those in educational institutions, flies in the face of actual behavior" (p.8). (Ouch!)

5. There is relevant information for every need.
"The truth is that mere information cannot satisfy many human needs" (p.8).

6 Every need situation has a solution.
"But sometimes the client is looking for something -- a reassurance, and understanding -- that does not come in the shape of a canned response" (p.8-9).

7. It is always possible to make information available or accessible.
"Formal information systems are limited in what they can accomplish, at least where the vague, ambiguous, and constantly changing needs of the public are concerned" (p. 9).

8. Functional units of information, such as books or TV programs, always fit the needs of the individual.
"But the 'functional units' of the individual are not often these things; rather, they are responses, solutions, instructions, ideas, friendships, and so forth" (p. 9).

9. Time and space -- individual situations -- can be ignored in addressing information seeking and use.
"Yet it is often the individual's definition of the situation that shapes his or her needs as much as the 'real' situation itself" (p. 9).

10. People make easy, conflict-free connections between external information and their internal reality.
"We lack understanding about how people inform themselves, how they make connections over time, the sense they make of their world between significant events" (p. 9).

Case, O.D. (2007). Introduction. In Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior (pp. 1-13). London: Academic Press.

Talk about creativity!

As pointed out by Alex Wright (2007) in his chapter titled "The Web that Wasn't" found in GLUT, in the wake of World War II their came an advance in the ideas involving information retrieval systems. In 1945, for example, Vannevar Bush published his essay "As We May Think" in The Atlantic Monthly. Therein, Bush imagined a a fictional machine named the Memex. It would be like a workstation providing access to documents stored on microfilm, allowing users to forge associative information trails.

Lo and behold! The Memex, as depicted by Alfred D. Cimi in Life, September 10, 1945.
According to Wright (2007), the caption to this image read:
"MEMEX in the form of a desk would instantly bring files and material on any subject to the operator's fingertips. Slanting translucent viewing screen magnify supermicrofilm filed by code numbers. At left is a mechanism which automatically photographs longhand notes, pictures and letters, then files them in the desk for future reference" (p. 193).

Wright, A. (2007). The web that wasn't. In GLUT: Mastering Information through the Ages (pp. 183-229). Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.

Information Retrieval Systems 2

Information retrieval systems and their . . .

Purpose:
Designed to retrieve information (or documents) needed by the user.

Functions:

1. To identify the information sources relevant to the areas of interest of the target user
2. To analyze the contents of the sources
3. To represent the contents of the analyzed sources in a way that will be suitable for matching users’ queries
4. To analyze the users’ queries and to represent them in a form that will be suitable for matching with the database
5. To match the search statement with the stored database
6. To retrieve the information that is relevant
7. To make necessary adjustments in the system based on feedback from the users

Components:

1. The document subsystem
2. The indexing subsystem
3. The vocabulary subsystem
4. The searching subsystem
5. The user-system interface
6. The matching subsystem (Chowdhury, 2004, pp. 2-3).
   

Chowdhury, G.G. (2004). Basic concepts of information retrieval systems. In Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval (2nd ed., pp. 1-12). London: Facet Publishing.

Information Retrieval Systems

Chapter one, “Basic Concepts of Information Retrieval Systems,” of G.G. Chowdhury (2004) text Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval explains that although the term “information retrieval” became popular in the research community from 1961 onwards, it was actually coined in 1952. Originally existing to inform of the existence or non-existence of bibliographic documents, this notion has changed since the availability of full text documents; the term is now defined as a “bridge between the world of creators or generators and the users of that information” (Chowdhury, 2004, p. 3).

Chowdhury, G.G. (2004). Basic concepts of information retrieval systems. In Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval (2nd ed, pp. 1-12). London: Facet Publishing.

Introduction

Slightly blandly defined by the Online Oxford English Dictionary as "the tracing of information stored in books, computers, or other collections of reference material," information retrieval, to me, deals with the recovery of information.

Interestingly, the idea that retrieval means recovery speaks to the concept and sense, also reality, that the information exists "out there"; however, it simply needs to be, not only accessed, but retrieved or recovered. Moreover, as the handy Online OED further explains, "to retrieve" is to "find or discover again"; "find and bring in"; "recall"; "restore"; "rediscover" . . . okay, you get the idea.

Therefore, it is as if to say, "you already knew this, you simply forgot that you did." Sound absurd? Well, not really, because, more often than not, when we retrieve information we do so based upon our own knowledge. We ask ourselves questions like:

• "Where do I think I can find this information?"
• "Which keywords will properly and efficiently access the info I need?"
• "Does the material I've found answer my informational want or need?" . . . and so on
  

Therefore, my interest in information retrieval exists in the ways in which users go about the retrieval itself. I also find interest in the processes the mind goes through simply intellectually, abstractly, or even, sometimes, emotionally when not only in the actual process of retrieval, but also during the experience of being faced with the task of having to retrieve information.

Hopefully, during the next few weeks, through out my dabbling studies in this topic, the many theories and theorists dealing with the matter will provide insight and further questions to boggle the mind.

Information. Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved June 11, 2008, from http://dictionary.oed.com