DEFINITION OF INFORMATION
Information has been defined severally by different scholars. It is view from diverse angles of its usage. The meaning and value of information is then user oriented i.e. the person who use it is the best person who can define what an information represents. Nonetheless, an attempt would be made to look at some definition of information.
Meadow and Yuan (1997) view information as “a message that changes the recipient’s knowledge base.” This implies that information adds significantly to the existing knowledge of the user. Buckland (1991) defines information as a process which occurs in the mind when a problem is united with data that can help solve it. Information is part of a process converting messages received into knowledge. Aiyepeku (1992) views information as something that reduces uncertainty in decision-making.
Budd (1992) defined information as “one of the building blocks in which data are ore (raw materials) followed by information which then leads to knowledge and this in turn gives rise to understanding which the leads to wisdom and consequently to decision-making.” From these definitions, it is clear that information is very important in Man’s activities, and without it, nothing or less may be achieved. Some of the essentials that information is attached to are: data, information, knowledge, wisdom, problem-solving, decision-making, e.t.c
INFORMATION SOURCING.
This is a process of searching for useful information from different sources. It must be well explained that information sources can be classified into two namely; formal and informal, internal and external. In some cases, sources of information could be from: Printed, Graphics, Oral, and Electronic sources. The system of searching through these sources by an information seeker, so as to retrieve the one that would help in decision making is called information sourcing.
Sourcing information products is a complex exercise involving many variables. In today's uncertain business climate, information budgets are sensitive to scrutiny and constantly under threat. In many cases, information professionals are faced with trying to get more value from suppliers with a flat or reduced budget or contending with a "now we have it, now we don't" scenario. What's more, there is a lot of rival content available from the Internet, making it more difficult to justify expenditure on pricey products.
As a category, information products pose a number of challenges to the information professional tasked with sourcing them. Information products constitute a complex category because they are difficult to compare on a feature-by-feature basis. Although there may be considerable overlap among the content offered and the products purchased, each one has certain unique features and a core group of users who consider these different products indispensable to their work. User needs can differ too, adding to the difficulty of comparing one product with another. In some segments of the market (real-time stock market data, for example) there is a virtual monopoly, which limits the relative power of the buyer. In the case of online news services, the tool itself, as well as the content, must be evaluated.
The practices of information sourcing maintain the following: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, extracting and verifying. All the just mentioned points are in stages which an information seeker would observe in the process of information sourcing.
INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
This has been defined by numerous scholars in the field of information science. Information retrieval (IR) is the science of searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching relational databases and the World Wide Web.
An information retrieval process begins when a user enters a query
into the system. Queries are formal statements of information needs, for example search strings in web search engines. In information retrieval a query does not uniquely identify a single object in the collection. Instead, several objects may match the query, perhaps with different degrees of relevancy
.
An object is an entity that is represented by information in a database.
User queries are matched against the database information. Depending on the applicationInformation retrieval applicationsAreas where information retrieval techniques are employed include :-General applications of information retrieval:* Digital libraries* Information filtering** Recommender systems* Media search...
The data objects may be, for example, text documents, images, audio, mind maps or videos. Often the documents themselves are not kept or stored directly in the IR system, but are instead represented in the system by document surrogates or metadata.
Most IR systems compute a numeric score on how well each objects in the database match the query, and rank the objects according to this value. The top ranking objects are then shown to the user. The process may then be iterated if the user wishes to refine the query. Information retrieval (IR) has changed considerably in the last years with the expansion of the Web (World Wide Web) and the advent of modern and inexpensive graphical user interfaces and mass storage devices.
As a result, traditional IR textbooks have become quite out-of-date which has led to the introduction of new IR books recently. Nevertheless, we believe that there is still great need of a book that approaches the field in a rigorous and complete way from a computer-science perspective (in opposition to a user-centered perspective).
Mainly, information retrieval (IR) is the process of actual having and obtaining the needed information, after searching for such from available sources so as to use it for problem-solving. Information retrieval is equally important to an information seeker. This for the reason that, many times, the format in which an information is found, made it difficult to be retrieved. This means that, not all information sourced for may be retrieved and useful but un-retrieved information is useless to the user. Consequently, user’s ability to retrieve valuable information is of great concern.
ICT-BASED INFORMATION SOURCES
Information Communication and Technology (ICT) has brought a lot of development into the field of information. ICT came, and touché all aspect of information management which covers information life cycle. ICT-based information sources arrive in a wide diversity of forms and are accessed in diverse ways. To access the wide range of ICT-based sources of information, firstly, you need a computer with a telephone link, or access via your television or mobile telephone to the internet.
The range of ICT-based information sources includes; CD-ROM, teletex, viewdata, bulletin boards, online databases, intranets, the internet, CD-ROM encyclopedia, e.t.c.
THE ROLES OF ICT IN INFORMATION SOURCING
• It helps to understand the purpose of a range of ICT-based information sources.
• It aids the understanding of these different sources.
• ICT helps to decide what equipment and software you will need to access these different sources.
• It affords information seekers to be well exposed to much information, from which best is chosen.
• It helps information users to rightly judge different available sources, when compare and contrast.
• It (internet) is available all the time. It is ever ready.
• ICT made information seekers know that not all information is completely free.
• It helps to understand that information can be structural in different ways.
• It teaches confidentiality of information.
• It saves time.
THE ROLES OF ICT IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
• ICT allows more than one information seekers to retrieve the same information at the same.
• It helps to understand that some online databases are public and that some are private.
• It saves time and energy.
• It provides offline access to information, using flash drive, memory cards, and e.t.c.
• It provides large capacities of storage devices.
• It aids preservation of information for posterity.
• It helps accessibility of information at anytime or anywhere. Once it is downloaded from the internet, and is saved on the computer or other storage device.
REFERENCES
http://findarticles.com/articles
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
PRESERVATION OF INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES
INTRODUCTION
Libraries and information centers plays important roles in the work, education, and recreation of millions of people. It is a place entrusted with the provision of means and source through which information need of people could be met, as well as helping them in decision making. Libraries and information centers also help in national building, sustenance and development which come in various ways through the availability of information resources, which the users draw on.
LIBRARY AND INFORMATION RESOURCES
Information services are largely dependent on information resources. They are those materials that compliment and supplement library and information services. Information resources mean the resources that information seekers can consult or use in the quest to get relieved and at the same time suppress threats that emanates as a result of their information needs. In the Library, the services rendered to the users include technical services, indexing and abstracting, selective dissemination of information (SDI), and e.t.c.
Information resources in the library and information centers are made up of different types, which are;
• BOOKS (printed materials): Fictions, non-fictions, periodicals, e.t.c.
• NON-PRINT MATERIALS: Microforms, CD-ROM, Discs
• ELECTRONIC RESOURCES: Computer, Television, Tape recorder, e.t.c.
It is worth notice that these resources plays specific roles in meeting information needs of the information seeker. Also, each user has his preferred format in which information to be used by him should be packaged.
THE INTERNET
Internet is a vast network of computers that connects many of the world’s business, institutions, and individuals. The internet, which is short for interconnected network of networks, links ten of thousands of smaller computer networks. It enables users of computers and other networked devices throughout the world to send and receive messages, share information in a variety of forms, and even play computer games with people living in other countries. Other devices require special hardware and software to connect to the internet, e.g. modem, network interface card, e.t.c.
The development and rapid growth of the World Wide Web (www) transformed the presentation of information on the internet. This enhances the use of multimedia-photographs, sound, and text. The web consists of millions of websites, collections of information at specific electronic addresses. It in turn contains web pages that hold multimedia or text-only information. Web sites and their pages reside in computers connected to the internet. Uses of the internet include; communication, research, publication, business transaction, push technology, e.t.c.
INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES
Internet-based resources are basically virtual resources which help in information acquisition. They are websites where information could be obtained, to meet several and various information need of information seekers. These resources are based on different level of coverage, namely;
General sites
Professional sites
Subject-based sites
Career sites
Health sites
Sport sites
Miscellaneous sites
Consequently, the major internet based resources are Google, yahoo, virtual internet libraries series, wikipedia; archivex, wikitionary, Amazon online, e.t.c. Feature and nature of internet based resources are the following among others:
• Essential element in evaluating the appropriate system
• Help in research process
• Assist in comparability of different version of system.
• It can be accessed anytime-timeless
• Aid assess current and organizational needs
• It is electrically based
• It is convenient
• It is flexible
• It is instant, quick and accelerated
PRESERVATION OF INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES
The rapid growth in the creation and dissemination of electronic information has emphasized the digital environment’s speed and ease of dissemination often with little regards for its long-term preservation and access. But, electronic information is fragile in ways that traditional paper-based information is not. Metadata creation and format standards have all contributed increasingly as reflected in system software that can be geared to local needs. Hence those systems provide an indication of the trends and issues remaining in the area of digital preservation and permanent access to electronic resources.
Preservation is a subset of conservation. It involves all activities and financial plan that ensure maintaining physical features, as well as protecting the intellectual content that a material contained. It comprises the act of reducing the cause of deterioration, ensuring good handling and storage, as well as reformatting the spoilt ones.
Instit6utional views of preservation requirements and what is meant by preservation can vary. It is important for those involved to ensure that, broadly, they share the same views and agree on what resources will be included for capture, management, storage, or preservation.
Managed Resources: We must manage resources in order to preserve them. An unmanaged resource is difficult, if not impossible, to preserve. Information lifecycle management, if adapted, can help manage web resources. A records management approach may help to enact preservation for business records or legal reasons, even if you don’t intend to keep the resource beyond its expiration.
Protection: Protecting a resource from loss or damage, over the short-term, is an acceptable form of preservation, even if you don’t intend to keep it for longer time.
Permanent Preservation: This means preservation as defined by OAIS model, which is published and internationally accepted as a feasible model for digital preservation. For web resources, we would assume, in this case, that an institutional decision has been made to keep the resources permanently.
RESOURCES TO BE PRESERVED
As a starting point, it is proposed that particular attention be paid to publications and records. Any other web content worth preserving might be considered an artifact with some fundamental interest. Deciding this will help to know what kind of approaches to adopt, when considering web resources for preservation purpose.
PRIORITIES: Prioritization is fundamental to successful preservation-keeping everything is rarely possible. Without policies, practitioners have little to guide their decisions about what must, should, could, and wont be preserved, let alone how. To decide what to preserve, MSCW method can be adopted, which is broken down as:
M-Things your organization must preserve
S-Things you should preserve, if at all possible
C-Things you could preserve, if it does not affect anything else
W-Things you won’t preserve
It is imperative to know that the enormity of website preservation and other web resources preservation is not as daunting as it might appear, and for these reasons;
• Preservation will not apply to all your web resources, because preservation of web resources will recommend a selective approach.
• Preservation won’t necessarily mean preserving every single version of every single resource.
• It may not always mean ‘keeping forever’ as permanent preservation is not the only viable option.
• Your preservation actions don’t have to result in a perfect solution.
CONTENTS OF INTERNET RESOURCES
Internet resources (websites) are likely to contain the following:
• Organizational records
• Contents affecting students, e.g. project, prospectus,
• Online libraries
• Digital collections
• E-learning objects
• Administrative outputs. E.t.c.
In addition, issues associated with website are:
Frequency of change
Access provision
Right of ownership
Streaming and multimedia
Databases and deep websites
Continuity
WEB ARCHIVING REQUIREMENTS
The process of web archiving requires the following:
Knowledge of the organizational structure and its aims
Awareness of the policies and drivers for preservation
Sound understanding of legal record-keeping requirements
Use made of web resources
Potential re-use value of resource
Knowledge of stakeholders and their needs
WEB CAPTURE: WHAT AND HOW?
The elements of web resources that need to be considered are: Content, Appearance, and Behavior. It is possible to imagine three points in the journey of a web page form server to user, where its capture, is likely to be most feasible and fruitful. These include capture within the authoring system or server, capture at the browser, and harvest content with crawlers.
APPROACHES TO WEB PRESERVATION
Successful web preservation is most likely to be achieved by a mix of skills from information management professionals. A variety of approaches are described below, where two main classes of approach are listed:
What to do approach: This include quick win solutions, actions that can be performed to achieve effective results in the short-term, and to rescue or protect resources identified as being most at risk. Actions to be taken include domain harvesting, pilot projects, and use of an EDRMS. They may become expensive to sustain if they do not evolve into strategy.
Strategic approaches: This includes longer-term strategic solutions, which take more time to implement. It involves some degree of change, and affects more people in the organization. These approaches are adapted from information lifecycle management and records management, and also approaches which involve working with external organizations to do the work (or some of it) for you. The pay off may be delayed in some cases, but the more these solutions become embedded in the workflow, the more web archiving and preservation becomes a matter of course, rather than something which requires reactive responses or constant maintenance, both of which can be expensive, resource-hungry and risky methods.
VALUE OF WEB RESOURCES
In cases where there are no clear and compelling reasons for retention, you need to assess the value of web resources in an objective way, thus ensuring that the value of the resource justifies the costs of continued preservation for retention. Some questions to be asked which will help to decide are:
• Is the resource needed by staff to perform specific task?
• Is the resource the only known copy, or the only way to access the content?
• Is the resource part of the institution’s web publication scheme?
• Can the resource be re-used or repurposed?
• Does it have potential heritage or historical value?
• Are there legal reasons for keeping the resource?
• Has the resource been accessed in the last six months?
REFRENCES
1. The World Book Encyclopedia (2006), Volume 10
2. http://portal.acm.org/citation
3. http://www.mottobiz.com
4. http://jiscinvolve.org
Libraries and information centers plays important roles in the work, education, and recreation of millions of people. It is a place entrusted with the provision of means and source through which information need of people could be met, as well as helping them in decision making. Libraries and information centers also help in national building, sustenance and development which come in various ways through the availability of information resources, which the users draw on.
LIBRARY AND INFORMATION RESOURCES
Information services are largely dependent on information resources. They are those materials that compliment and supplement library and information services. Information resources mean the resources that information seekers can consult or use in the quest to get relieved and at the same time suppress threats that emanates as a result of their information needs. In the Library, the services rendered to the users include technical services, indexing and abstracting, selective dissemination of information (SDI), and e.t.c.
Information resources in the library and information centers are made up of different types, which are;
• BOOKS (printed materials): Fictions, non-fictions, periodicals, e.t.c.
• NON-PRINT MATERIALS: Microforms, CD-ROM, Discs
• ELECTRONIC RESOURCES: Computer, Television, Tape recorder, e.t.c.
It is worth notice that these resources plays specific roles in meeting information needs of the information seeker. Also, each user has his preferred format in which information to be used by him should be packaged.
THE INTERNET
Internet is a vast network of computers that connects many of the world’s business, institutions, and individuals. The internet, which is short for interconnected network of networks, links ten of thousands of smaller computer networks. It enables users of computers and other networked devices throughout the world to send and receive messages, share information in a variety of forms, and even play computer games with people living in other countries. Other devices require special hardware and software to connect to the internet, e.g. modem, network interface card, e.t.c.
The development and rapid growth of the World Wide Web (www) transformed the presentation of information on the internet. This enhances the use of multimedia-photographs, sound, and text. The web consists of millions of websites, collections of information at specific electronic addresses. It in turn contains web pages that hold multimedia or text-only information. Web sites and their pages reside in computers connected to the internet. Uses of the internet include; communication, research, publication, business transaction, push technology, e.t.c.
INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES
Internet-based resources are basically virtual resources which help in information acquisition. They are websites where information could be obtained, to meet several and various information need of information seekers. These resources are based on different level of coverage, namely;
General sites
Professional sites
Subject-based sites
Career sites
Health sites
Sport sites
Miscellaneous sites
Consequently, the major internet based resources are Google, yahoo, virtual internet libraries series, wikipedia; archivex, wikitionary, Amazon online, e.t.c. Feature and nature of internet based resources are the following among others:
• Essential element in evaluating the appropriate system
• Help in research process
• Assist in comparability of different version of system.
• It can be accessed anytime-timeless
• Aid assess current and organizational needs
• It is electrically based
• It is convenient
• It is flexible
• It is instant, quick and accelerated
PRESERVATION OF INTERNET-BASED RESOURCES
The rapid growth in the creation and dissemination of electronic information has emphasized the digital environment’s speed and ease of dissemination often with little regards for its long-term preservation and access. But, electronic information is fragile in ways that traditional paper-based information is not. Metadata creation and format standards have all contributed increasingly as reflected in system software that can be geared to local needs. Hence those systems provide an indication of the trends and issues remaining in the area of digital preservation and permanent access to electronic resources.
Preservation is a subset of conservation. It involves all activities and financial plan that ensure maintaining physical features, as well as protecting the intellectual content that a material contained. It comprises the act of reducing the cause of deterioration, ensuring good handling and storage, as well as reformatting the spoilt ones.
Instit6utional views of preservation requirements and what is meant by preservation can vary. It is important for those involved to ensure that, broadly, they share the same views and agree on what resources will be included for capture, management, storage, or preservation.
Managed Resources: We must manage resources in order to preserve them. An unmanaged resource is difficult, if not impossible, to preserve. Information lifecycle management, if adapted, can help manage web resources. A records management approach may help to enact preservation for business records or legal reasons, even if you don’t intend to keep the resource beyond its expiration.
Protection: Protecting a resource from loss or damage, over the short-term, is an acceptable form of preservation, even if you don’t intend to keep it for longer time.
Permanent Preservation: This means preservation as defined by OAIS model, which is published and internationally accepted as a feasible model for digital preservation. For web resources, we would assume, in this case, that an institutional decision has been made to keep the resources permanently.
RESOURCES TO BE PRESERVED
As a starting point, it is proposed that particular attention be paid to publications and records. Any other web content worth preserving might be considered an artifact with some fundamental interest. Deciding this will help to know what kind of approaches to adopt, when considering web resources for preservation purpose.
PRIORITIES: Prioritization is fundamental to successful preservation-keeping everything is rarely possible. Without policies, practitioners have little to guide their decisions about what must, should, could, and wont be preserved, let alone how. To decide what to preserve, MSCW method can be adopted, which is broken down as:
M-Things your organization must preserve
S-Things you should preserve, if at all possible
C-Things you could preserve, if it does not affect anything else
W-Things you won’t preserve
It is imperative to know that the enormity of website preservation and other web resources preservation is not as daunting as it might appear, and for these reasons;
• Preservation will not apply to all your web resources, because preservation of web resources will recommend a selective approach.
• Preservation won’t necessarily mean preserving every single version of every single resource.
• It may not always mean ‘keeping forever’ as permanent preservation is not the only viable option.
• Your preservation actions don’t have to result in a perfect solution.
CONTENTS OF INTERNET RESOURCES
Internet resources (websites) are likely to contain the following:
• Organizational records
• Contents affecting students, e.g. project, prospectus,
• Online libraries
• Digital collections
• E-learning objects
• Administrative outputs. E.t.c.
In addition, issues associated with website are:
Frequency of change
Access provision
Right of ownership
Streaming and multimedia
Databases and deep websites
Continuity
WEB ARCHIVING REQUIREMENTS
The process of web archiving requires the following:
Knowledge of the organizational structure and its aims
Awareness of the policies and drivers for preservation
Sound understanding of legal record-keeping requirements
Use made of web resources
Potential re-use value of resource
Knowledge of stakeholders and their needs
WEB CAPTURE: WHAT AND HOW?
The elements of web resources that need to be considered are: Content, Appearance, and Behavior. It is possible to imagine three points in the journey of a web page form server to user, where its capture, is likely to be most feasible and fruitful. These include capture within the authoring system or server, capture at the browser, and harvest content with crawlers.
APPROACHES TO WEB PRESERVATION
Successful web preservation is most likely to be achieved by a mix of skills from information management professionals. A variety of approaches are described below, where two main classes of approach are listed:
What to do approach: This include quick win solutions, actions that can be performed to achieve effective results in the short-term, and to rescue or protect resources identified as being most at risk. Actions to be taken include domain harvesting, pilot projects, and use of an EDRMS. They may become expensive to sustain if they do not evolve into strategy.
Strategic approaches: This includes longer-term strategic solutions, which take more time to implement. It involves some degree of change, and affects more people in the organization. These approaches are adapted from information lifecycle management and records management, and also approaches which involve working with external organizations to do the work (or some of it) for you. The pay off may be delayed in some cases, but the more these solutions become embedded in the workflow, the more web archiving and preservation becomes a matter of course, rather than something which requires reactive responses or constant maintenance, both of which can be expensive, resource-hungry and risky methods.
VALUE OF WEB RESOURCES
In cases where there are no clear and compelling reasons for retention, you need to assess the value of web resources in an objective way, thus ensuring that the value of the resource justifies the costs of continued preservation for retention. Some questions to be asked which will help to decide are:
• Is the resource needed by staff to perform specific task?
• Is the resource the only known copy, or the only way to access the content?
• Is the resource part of the institution’s web publication scheme?
• Can the resource be re-used or repurposed?
• Does it have potential heritage or historical value?
• Are there legal reasons for keeping the resource?
• Has the resource been accessed in the last six months?
REFRENCES
1. The World Book Encyclopedia (2006), Volume 10
2. http://portal.acm.org/citation
3. http://www.mottobiz.com
4. http://jiscinvolve.org
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