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ASLIB PUBLICATIONS: MANAGING INFORMATION REPORTS

The Internet And The Changing Information Environment: COntents Page

INTRODUCTION

The Internet has become the information world’s obsession. Plainly it poses many strategic and searching questions for information users, information professionals and the information industry alike. Rhetoric and technical evaluations there are aplenty, but what is in short supply is hard data on what is happening in regard to information seeking in the workplace, in the home and on the ground. The Internet and all it stands for needs not just to be patted on the back but challenged and confronted by the data as to who uses it, and to what purpose. What are the problems or benefits associated with its use and what does it displace, if anything? This book sets out to answer these questions in a hard-hitting, structured and pragmatic style. To this end, the book draws on recently funded research studies and ongoing research conducted by City University’s Internet Studies Research Group (ISRG) – the only specialist research group in the field of Information Science. The principal studies drawn upon were:

• The changing information environment: the media and the Internet, funded by the British Library (Nicholas et al 1998). The study investigated how journalists used the Internet for information retrieval purposes, and how it changed their information-seeking habits.

• Information dissemination via the Internet: case study of a regional newspaper, funded by NewsquestNortheast (Williams and Nicholas 1998a, 1999). In a sense, this was the mirror image of the first study, but conducted on a regional and individual stage. It examined newspaper tactics and strategy in using the Internet to promote their product – the issue was dissemination rather than retrieval.

• Evaluating web log statistics: case study of The Times/Sunday Times, funded by News International (Nicholas et al 1999, Nicholas and Huntington 1999). This completed our trilogy of media studies, and in a way closed the circle by looking specifically at end-users (consumers). For this study, web logs were used to generate a more quantitative and statistical picture of web readership.

• Children’s use of the Internet (Williams 1999). This was a shorter-term study and looked at use of the Internet by children in their own time – unconstrained by the exigencies of teachers attempting to wring pedagogical benefits from the system. Opinions of educators and parents were obtained and depth interviews with the youngsters themselves were undertaken.

A further ongoing study was also used:

• The Web, the kiosk, digital TV and the changing face of consumer health information provision: a national impact research study, funded by the Department of Health (preliminary results of which are discussed in Nicholas et al 2000). This is looking at web, touch screen and digital TV mediated health information. Both log analysis and qualitative methods are being used to measure use, attitude towards and impact of health information systems.

In addition, the work of a number of PhD and MSc students working with the ISRG informs the book. In particular we would like to note the work of Caroline Auty for her work in the political arena and Mike Chivhanga’s work on the Internet in Africa. The third source of our data is the published literature itself.

There are good reasons for focusing on the media in our research and discussions. Firstly, with information being their prime business it might be expected that those in the media would be the early leaders in the adoption and adaptation of the new technology. Secondly, the hot-house and demanding nature of news rooms affords an ideal (pressure-cooker) environment in which unobtrusively to investigate the issues. Thirdly, news organisations are encyclopaedic in nature, employing people from a large number of subjects and backgrounds: therefore they offer a very comprehensive testing ground. Fourthly, the media is something most people can relate to. Finally, newspapers are information disseminators par excellence, and the way and extent to which their product has adapted (or failed to adapt) to the new medium may be representative of the efforts of others to exploit the system. The other study, where fieldwork was undertaken in a school, was valuable in that it enabled a completely different perspective to be examined from an environment where the use and aspired use of the Internet was not governed by simple information needs, but by pedagogical considerations too.

The key research questions addressed in these studies were:

• Who uses the Internet and for what reasons?

• What kinds of searches do users conduct?

• What are the key information-seeking considerations associated with use of the Internet – for instance, do quality and quantity issues weigh heavily in users’ minds?

• What are the benefits and problems associated with searching and communicating over the Internet?

• What impact, if any, is the Internet having on the use of traditional existing information services and communication channels?

A mixture of methods was used to obtain the data for this book, depth interviews with users and information professionals being the most common. More than 400 interviews were conducted; web log analysis, observation, questionnaires and web site evaluation techniques were also used. More details of the methods can be found in Nicholas et al (1998, 1999).

The book is divided into three parts. Part one deals with the size and growth of the Internet, looking at such statistics as the number of hosts, sites and pages, users, and volume and pattern of use. Methodological problems in determining these figures are outlined and efforts by the Internet Studies Research Group to characterise use by the analysis of web logs are detailed. Part two revisits and reassesses the special features that make up the Internet. Currency, global reach, egalitarianism, comprehensiveness and interactivity all come under scrutiny, and various questions are raised such as: ‘Is the Internet as egalitarian as we think?’ Academic and popular literature, as well as our own studies, are drawn on heavily to make our reappraisal of the Internet’s power and uniqueness. Part three looks at use of the Internet, and is principally informed by our own extensive studies in the media and elsewhere. Two categorisations of user types are offered, one from interviews and observation of various samples totalling over 300 users and non-users, the other from the characterisation of use patterns elicited from web logs. Issues such as information overload, displacement of other sources, and quality and authority concerns are also considered in this part. Growth in end use and the future of the information professional is tackled. Finally, the conclusion uses our findings to predict what is likely to happen in the future – a bold (or foolish!) way, we think, to close a book of this nature. The constant change and innovation impacting on the information landscape have made writing these pages an extraordinary battle to keep ahead of events, and we just hope that the ground doesn’t change so much on our final leap forward that we land further back than where we took off!