Steve Hitchcock said:
>>>In November, Roddy MacLeod drew the attention of lis-elib to a forthcoming
>>>article discussing the quality of information on the WWW (see below). The
>>>article is published in Computer 29(1) 1996, pp106-108
...........
I think Steve's response to the Ciolek paper was most interesting. I'd just
like to make two observations.
(1) The use of Alta Vista or other search engines *does* present a quality
control problem: you find information on your subject of interest but you
have no idea what (if any) form of quality control has been applied to it.
This does not apply, of course, if you find things by browsing electronic
journals that you know to be peer-reviewed. Information professionals know
this, but end users don't, necessarily. And some WWW libertarians believe
that *any* form of quality control is censorship and therefore morally
objectionable, as an infringement of people's freedom of speech on the WWW.
(I know this because I've been flamed for advocating quality control, which
hurts because I think I'm a libertarian.)
(2) When computer-based information retrieval first began, about 30 years
ago, it was perceived as a means of helping people to cope with the
"information explosion". The phrase "selective dissemination of
information" was used, and information professionals perceived it to be
their job to help clients find just the right pieces of information for
their needs. They still do, in fact. But somewhere along the line -- I'm
not sure quite when -- this ideal got a bit lost, and instead the philosophy
that "more is better" arose instead among the Internet community, and it is
seen as a virtue of IT that it can deliver more and more information to
everybody. So now we're all swamped! But information professionals
(including those in training to become information professionals) still
recognise the need for selectivity, and it is to be hoped that they will
succeed in finding means of helping clients to cope with the information
explosion even when those clients are at a remote terminal and are never
seen face to face.
Having said this, to condemn the WWW because there is too much information
of dubious quality on it is like saying that paper is a bad thing because
pornography is sometimes printed on it.
Fytton Rowland.
Fytton Rowland, Lecturer, Phone +44 (0)1509 223039
Department of Information and Library Studies, Fax +44 (0)1509 223053
Loughborough University, Internet:
Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK [log in to unmask]
WWW: http://info.lut.ac.uk/departments/dils/staff/frowland.html
"There isn't a train I wouldn't catch, no matter where its going."
(Edna St Vincent Millay)
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