The shifting information landscape:re-inventing the wheel or a whole new frontier for librarians

Abstract

The explosive growth and overwhelming use of World Wide Web resources have led to the often misguided, but understandable belief that one can find any information on the Web. In businesses, direct marketing on the Web produced big success stories in sales and marketing. This led to the conclusion that the process of "dis-intermediation" has begun.

The information landscape is shifting and is changing fast. Publishers and vendors are positioning themselves for electronic journals, document delivery and outright information support through the compilation of knowledge bases. Do we need intermediaries such as libraries (especially small special (medical) libraries) anyway? As librarians, how should we position ourselves for this change?

In the new information eco-system, there is too much data and too much information. Value is added in the data-information-knowledge chain by filtering and critically appraising the information. The author draws a parallel analogy from knowledge management literature and highlights the importance of adding value to the process of the transformation of data to information, and from information to knowledge.

The trend towards supporting evidence-based practice in health care is a good example of how librarians could use their skills and knowledge to give better support and added value to the health care process. In participating in knowledge building and application in the local environment, the traditional role of a library in being a repository and a provider of information is no longer adequate. New roles in publishing, marketing, teaching, researching, collaborating and building up the knowledge emerge. Continuous education and training in new skills will better equip librarians with the new roles, while at the same time, librarians should preserve the traditional and professional value of providing quality information to those in need.

Introduction

I must thank the Australian Library and Information Association and the Conference Organising Committee for inviting me here. It is a great honour for me to be delivering this address together with the other prominent professionals. I was trained in librarianship in Australia and my six years in Adelaide and Canberra were an enjoyable and eye-opening part of my career where a solid professional foundation was laid. I am glad to have the opportunity to return and speak to you and it gives me this warm feeling of home-coming. I am afraid though that I have already lost my Australian accent.

The topics on which I would like to focus are information ecology and knowledge management - "re-inventing the wheel" or a whole new frontier for librarians. As I oversee the development of health sciences libraries, I am going to concentrate on the trends towards supporting evidence-based practice in health care, the challenges posed (and the opportunities offered) by information technology, resource limitations and our users' and management perceptions and expectations, and the roles librarians can play.

The shifting information landscape

I did Geography and Economics for my first degree and the word "landscape" naturally came to my mind as I thought about the title for this paper. Landscape is used metaphorically to mean the general environment in which librarians and information scientists find themselves.

This environment encompasses a number of key players in information management and provision, including end users, the management, publishers, vendors and librarians. The key players operate in an environment with technology, tools, processes and procedures that support information access and use. In other words, information ecology exists. I will use this metaphor a lot, as it suggests balance, symbioses, adaptations and survival (or extinction) of species in the environment. As one of the species, the librarian, I should focus on how I think we ought to assess, react, adapt, pro-act, or even pre-act within this changing landscape.

Information ecology
Ecology, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is "the study of the relationships between individual organisms and their environment". The term "information ecology", proposed by Davenport and Prusak (1997) as a new way to look at information management, takes into account the total information environment within an organisation - processes, information, habits and agendas that affect the information environment.

The idea was echoed by Nardi and O'Day (1999, p.49) in their latest book "Information ecologies: using technology with heart". They define information ecology to be "a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology."

According to them, a hospital intensive-care unit is an information ecology. A law firm is an information ecology. So is the library, with books, journals, audio-visual materials, electronic databases, with librarians who can help clients to find and use information. Librarians are "keystone species" in the information ecologies, upholding the core value of accessibility of information to all clients. (Keystone is a wedge-shaped stone at the pinnacle of an arch, which stabilizes and holds the arch together.)

Nardi and O'Day in their recent book (1999) compare the rapid advances in information technology and the resulting information explosion as a volcanic eruption. The eruption is upsetting the information eco-system and impacting on all the habitations thriving in it. Even though one may not agree with the loose and seemingly dramatic and negative metaphor, it is not difficult to visualise the clear image of destruction and the drastic change to the landscape and environment associated with the volcanic activity.

As librarians, we should be most familiar with the challenges posed (and opportunities offered) by information technology that has impacted and helped in shaping new methods in collecting, organising and disseminating information.

New information technology
One of the obvious examples of changes was the availability of information on the World Wide Web and the publication of electronic journals and knowledge databases. Examples of sophisticated kind of embedded multi-media e-journals on the world wide web include the Institute of Physics' Nanotechnology (http://www.iop.org/Journals/na)., and The Internet journal of Chemistry (http://www.ijc.com/) They will bring changes to the way journals, articles and information are being published, disseminated, used and paid for.

A different kind of information ecology is evolving, resulting in faster publication, the survival (or demise) of the printed journals, changing demand and usage patterns, direct marketing, etc. New issues emerge such as intellectual responsibility, copyright, cost and pricing structures (article based or title subscriptions) and affordability. New breeds of electronic publishers were created or self created.

The species in information eco-systems
The rule of the game is evolving. Up until a few years ago, the pattern of information access was a discontinuous one. Our users were accustomed to searching the library catalogue or indexes for suitable titles then going to the shelves for the actual full text of books or journals. For those articles not held in the library, users would be content to request an inter-library loan for the articles not held in our libraries. This was done as a matter of fact.

Our library users' expectations are changing. The age of integrated information has come in which instantaneous delivery of the full-text articles or the information is expected once the citation is found. Clients like to believe that everything can be found on the Internet.

A survey was conducted by mailed questionnaire in January 1999 on a stratified random sample of staff (n=1565) of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. The comments received indicated that users have high expectations of the Internet and information technology, and the librarians' roles in imparting that knowledge, FOR FREE (or for very low cost).

Respondents would like their library to:

• "organise more courses and talks on information sources and services";
• provide "Access to HALIS (Hospital Authority Library Information System) from home (and from the ward). [It] is such a bright idea, it is more comfortable to search information at home, especially after dinner and bath"; (Everything can be found on the Internet.)
• "(please) provide training course or a 24-hour "hotline" to train in the use of Internet";
• "help set up chat room/discussion groups for individual specialties";
• and so on.

Information technology can be a boon to faster application of information and knowledge to work. Some information can be available at low cost if it is available freely on the Internet. On the other hand, it can be expensive with commercially produced knowledge databases. Resources are, by the law of nature, limited. The challenge is: how can we best exploit what we have got in order to select, filter and disseminate to appropriate users in our local environment?

Librarians are not the only species who have to adapt. In some of the interviews I conducted with doctors about a month ago, they mentioned that they were now subject to more psychological pressure when their patients to produce a pile of printouts obtained from the Internet. The easy availability of data (be it accurate, relevant or not) means that clinicians will have to face up to the challenges posed by what some scholars call a shift in the balance of power. Power is in the hands of those who possess (or think that they do possess) knowledge.

Publishers of traditional printed journals are concerned about the fast development of electronic media. Large corporations merge to remain competitive. They design new rules in purchasing to stop or slow down the move to electronic media, or they simply join in the rush in a big way.

The information chain in the information ecosystem
In eco-systems, ecologists identify the existence of the food chain. Energy moves through the ecosystem, much of it is lost along the food chain. E.g. only about 10 percent of the energy stored in grass is incorporated into the body of a mouse that eats the grass. The other 90% are wasted through the process of metabolism of the mouse. (EB Online)

What happens in the information ecosystem? The proponents of knowledge management assert that as data moves through the information chain, the value of the information increases as information volumes decrease.

Through advances in information and communication technology, information becomes too available, leading to poor quality information overload. Hence value is added when someone manages, through their own skills and knowledge, to weed and filter the information, to manipulate and turn it into the best available and ready-to-use information for application.

McRae in describing the information revolution in the book "The world in 2020" said,

"People need filters to separate the quality information from the junk, and to apply judgement to what remains... The added value is the judgement that accompanies it." ... (McRae H 1994, 175)

"Judgment is a great asset; it makes the diagnostician and the surgeon both supermen" (Mayo, Sir Charles Horace 1929)

Data-Information-Knowledge Continuum
Davenport and Prusak (1998) in their book "Working knowledge" provided a systematic overview of these basic concepts and the working definition of knowledge management in organisations. They defined knowledge management in a framework that I shall refer to as the "data-information-knowledge (D-I-K) continuum". (Some authors elaborated on higher levels in the continuum - wisdom and truth, which may become too philosophical or abstract for library practices. For the sake of clarity, they are left out in the analogy. An elaborate discourse on the definition of knowledge management is not intended in this paper.)

Data is a set of "discrete, objective facts about events" (Davenport and Prusak, 1998, p.2) while information is "data transformed by the value-adding processes of contextualisation, categorisation, calculation, correction and condensation (Davenport and Prusak 1998, p.4). Knowledge is derived from information through human interactions - comparisons, assessment of consequences, making connections and conversations.

Knowledge has more value because it is closer to action than data and information. Value is added to data, turning them to information. Information is appraised, assessed, compared, thus turning it into knowledge. According to them, knowledge can also move down the value chain, a process which they called "de-knowledging", the return from knowledge to information and data. The most common reason is too much volume.

In knowledge management, information is regarded not only as a tool, but also an asset that should be exploited to increase the value of the organisation. Information itself is not the ultimate product: how to exploit information to generate new local knowledge for improvement of organisational performance is the desirable outcome.

The D-I-K framework is useful in that it provides a perspective to identify and understand those processes and actions leading to the next stage of the information chain, the generation of knowledge.

Evidence-based practice in health care
Medicine is generally regarded as a knowledge-intensive business. There has been increasing focus on evidence-based practice in health care since the early 1990's when a number of important concerns emerged.

Many research studies were found to be deficient in methodologic rigour. In a review of 45 000 biomedical papers published 1950 and 1978, 80 percent of them were found to be deficient in methodology (Policy Research Incorporated 1979). There was also a crisis of confidence concerning the quality control of published papers and the prevalence of scientific fraud (Silverman WA 1998, p.27). Combined with the sheer volume of literature, it is very hard to keep up-to-date, even with the traditional form of continuous medical education. The problem is exacerbated with the explosion of electronic publishing. More and more new evidence is being generated that may be able to apply to patient care. There was concern that often the relationship between the publication of evidence and practice is not obvious. As Martin Fischer said, 'It takes fifty years from the discovery of a principle in medicine to its adoption in practice.'

Evidence-based medicine, with its philosophical origins dating back to mid-nineteenth century Paris, is defined as "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients." (Sackett DL et al 1996).

Evidence-based practitioners ask why certain health care interventions are being done (or not done), and produce quantitative estimates of effectiveness (or limitations) to justify them. Medical decisions should be based on current best evidence from external research and the patient, and the expertise and judgement of the practitioner himself.

Despite the large volume of medical literature, in journals as well as on the Internet, not many publications meet the criteria for best evidence. A number of studies on the reliability and accuracy of information obtained from Web sites can be found in the literature. The general findings are that only a small number of studies available on the Web followed guidelines for treatment recommended by national professional bodies (Impicciatore P, Pandolfini C, Casella N, Bonati M 1997; McClung H, Juhling MD, Murray RD, Heitlinger LA 1998).

Thus there is a need to apply filters in searching, and to critically appraise clinical literature in order to make judgement about its validity and relevance in clinical practice. Naylor and Guyatt (1996) stipulate a checklist for the appraisal of evidence of appropriateness: are the criteria evidence based?; how scientifically was the study done?; are the criteria relevant to the "local" service?

The data-information-knowledge continuum in health care
J.A. Muir Gray (1997) divided evidence-based health care into three main stages - producing evidence, making evidence available and using evidence/getting research into practice.

A number of parallels can be drawn between Davenport's D-I-K framework and the main stages of evidence-based practice as depicted by Muir Gray. The striking similarities in the nature of the actions are depicted in the following diagram. The actions which Davenport and Prusak described in transforming information into knowledge, comparison, conversation, connections, have to be engaged in developing local clinical practice guidelines, or appraising an intervention or a treatment.

Knowledge management and evidence-based health care, a comparison.

Adapted from Davenport and Prusak (1998) and Gray (1997)

Positioning ourselves in the data-information-knowledge continuum in health care
Gray listed out a number of competencies in managing evidence by individual health decision-makers (1997, 195-9).

In searching for evidence, decision-makers should be able to:

• develop a proactive scanning strategy for updating their knowledge.
• carry out a search of MEDLINE;
• download search onto reference management software;
• receive training on how to find research evidence if they do not know.

In storing and retrieving evidence found, they should be able:

• enter references and abstracts in reference management software
• search for the references
• download and upload from reference management software
• receive training in using reference management system

In appraising evidence, they should be able to, in the context of local circumstances:

• appraise a review article of a therapy, a test, a screening programme...
• appraise the quality of systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials, case-control studies, surveys, etc.
• receive training on critical appraisal skills

Librarians' contributions in developing competencies of health care professionals
How can librarians contribute in developing these competencies? Can we do something to add value to the knowledge acquisition process? As Gray said in his book (1997, p.8), "Resources necessary to every decision-maker ...[are] the support of a librarian".

Turn Data into Information = Produce evidence and make evidence available

Librarians can definitely add value to the data-information transformation process. We should actively and strategically disseminate evidence to those who need it, in a form and in a situation desired by clinicians and managers alike. Supporting the filter and critical appraisal of the information obtained will be a crucial part of that role.

It was predicted that the evidence-based approach will lead to the demise of the traditional format of information dissemination, namely textbooks, and the growth of new secondary literature, fewer in number and higher in relevance. Already a few secondary journals, databases and web sites have been published: Cochrane Library, Clinical Evidence, Evidence-based Medicine, Evidence-based Nursing, the Oxford CATBank, and so on. They will add a new dimension to the collection development policies and activities.

Librarians have also taken up the roles in practicing and teaching quality filtering in searching and critical appraisal skills. Other librarians recommend scanning strategies, and provide advice on electronic alert services. There are reports from the literature (Scherrer CS, Dorsch JL 1999, Smith JT 1996) and from Web sites on this involvement that it is increasingly practiced in Canada, United States and other parts of the world as well.

There is increasing involvement by some librarians in clinical practice, such as taking part in morning reports and ward rounds. Some also become a member of the research team in meta-analysis (combining results of research studies using statistical techniques). Some actually provided logistical support in running the Journal Club for clinicians.

Librarians can also engage and participate in the development of digital libraries and subject gateways (e.g. National of Australia http://www.nla.gov.au/pathways/pthw_global.html)

The current trend in building digital libraries provides many opportunities for the systems-oriented librarian, who has been familiar with metadata since the 1970s eg. MARC. The emergence of new metadata formats and the availability of the second-generation Intranets for fully user-oriented access is going to influence information dissemination patterns in the years to come.

Turn Information into Knowledge = Use and get evidence into practice.

In the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA), work is underway to build a knowledge gateway, a portal where external evidence is filtered and accredited. An electronic forum is created by librarians for clinicians and managers to discuss and exchange opinions on the application of the evidence in local clinical practice. It is believed that in providing an easy, filtered access to evidence, and a convenient and open forum for discussions of its local context and applications, the creation of new knowledge (action or no action is needed) will be expedited.

Librarians in HA also support the electronic publication of the newsletter of best evidence, where interventions of the most common occurrence are selected, summarised, and full texts are available through hot-links to the Internet, Intranet or locally mounted databases.

"Our staff can have easy and convenient access to the latest and best evidence. Instead of spending a lot of time in obtaining the information, they can then concentrate on the more important task of applying the evidence in their daily practice and decision-making." ... (Dr Dickson Chang, Deputy Director, Hong Kong Hospital Authority)

At a later stage, internally generated clinical practice guidelines will be incorporated in the knowledge gateway for their use and continuous development.

Changing demand in the information market place
Cronin, Stiffler and Day (1993) found in many job listings for information positions, the master degree in library science had to be combined with a science, business, or journalism degree. Others required a medical degree, or doctor of philosophy in computer science, or related subjects.

Funk (1998) compared Medical Library Association job listings and found that 44% of the job listings in 1996 required Web, Internet or information systems knowledge. The ability to instruct and teach appeared in 47% of jobs. The other important one was reference skills.

Core Competencies of Future Librarians
The future information professional, in order to adapt to the new environment, should be able to:

• Have broad outlook of your organisation's and users' needs;
• Possess a good "business sense" balanced by professional ethics;
• Study and research on your users' needs and target your services to meet those needs;
• Package, promote and present your services;
• Publish on the Web;
• Communicate, coordinate and collaborate with other information professionals and end users;
• Participate in research using critical appraisal and statistical techniques such as meta-analyses;
• Understand technology and its potential and its real applications (not only being computer literate);
• Know and/or use metadata to organise digital information as one uses MARC to organise bibliographic data;
• Conduct training workshops to impart knowledge of information resources on the Internet and alternative sources of information available commercially;
• Possess knowledge in specialised subject areas to enable the filtering and appraisal of research studies;
• And more ...

Core competencies can be acquired; skills can be learned. To adapt to the fast changes, continuous education and training is a norm rather than an exception through the career of an individual. The above list is not exhaustive, but it provides those core competencies if we are to provide high-value, high-impact information services to enable knowledge generation. It applies equally to all types of libraries and librarians. With the many possibilities to engage in and participate, there should be something best suited to your temperament.

Re-inventing the wheel or whole new frontier for librarians

In ecosystems, living organisms adapt to their environments to thrive; otherwise they become extinct. The law of nature is survival. How would you feel if librarians become endangered species?

The good news is, as Nardi (1999, p.182) emphasized, that "information ecology, unlike a biological ecology, is designed". Key players also need to adapt in response to the change in environment. In return, their actions and interactions affect the whole ecosystem.

What course of action do you want to take in order to make a difference to your organisation, to the profession, and to whole information eco-system? How difficult is it to understand and contribute towards the development of the Dublin Core when you already know about MARC? How easy would it be to teach search filtering when you have been conducting user-searching seminars?

Humanity is made up of individuals, not an amorphous whole. These are the questions you will have to answer for yourselves. Or you may wish to discuss at this conference what your professional association or library school can do to position ourselves and prepare us for the new roles.

I would like to provide some food for thought for the ecologically and the not so ecologically minded. Sir Charles Horace Mayo, Dr (1931) said:

"We live in proportion to our ability to respond to and correlate ourselves with our environment.. .. Today the only thing that is permanent is change ... So rapid has been this advance (in medicine), as new knowledge developed, that the truth of each year was necessarily modified by new evidence, making the truth an ever-changing factor."

Tomorrow, change is certain and change is fast. But I believe librarians will survive, not only by our skills (because skills are evolving according to current needs and can be learnt by others) or the existence of a physical library, but by our unique combination of experience, knowledge and judgement that we have accumulated for hundreds of years in organising the stuff called information. We will survive if we have the will to adapt to change, right through the 21st century.

And last but not least, we have a value system that is at the heart of the matter - a will to serve, encourage and support life-long learning and provide filtered information access to all those in need. This is where our value lies. I agree perfectly with Warren Horton:

"Libraries liberate the mind, they excite and encourage imagination ... at relatively little cost" ...

In the words of Chairman Mao Zedong:

"The future is bright, but the road ahead is full of twists and turns."

Tomorrow we have even more options along the information chain - and a whole new frontier to explore. Are you ready for it?

Author

As an Associate of the Australian Library and Information Association, Grace Cheng is a part-time doctoral candidate with research interest in the measurement of library performance. She has over twenty years' library experience in various types of libraries, including national, state, academic, and special libraries in Australia and Hong Kong.

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