Digital Information: Order or Anarchy?

Citation

Katsirikou, A. (2011), "Digital Information: Order or Anarchy?", Library Management, Vol. 32 No. 4/5, pp. 377-378. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435121111132419

One of the most important actions of libraries is the preservation of the human thought and knowledge through centuries, the information storage and access is a vital operation. Access to information needs storage capacities and communication technologies. As the century changed, the public rapidly gained access to new and dramatically faster communication technologies. A lot of problems rose: the compatibility of the engines, the effectiveness of the retrieval systems, the organization and the management of the content, the quality of the content, and the cost of the project.

This book focuses on the information dissemination in our digital time and seeks equally the preservation of the past and the support of future achievements. As one of the authors refer:

For the future of digital information to be orderly, that information must be discoverable, accessible, structured, interoperable, linked, semantically tagged and well identified; it must have clear provenance and good version control; and it must be preserved and curated.

Another crucial topic that influences the whole project of digital or digitized information and is referred to the book is the matter of copyright. In its pages, it systematically introduces and explains the concepts that successfully navigate the organization of the digital networked information. The electronic dissemination of the information seems chaotic, and it is not so easy to draw patterns to guide best decisions. Is there order in the chaos? Is chaos technological, informational, and/or managerial? Are the exclusive rights to intellectual property, such as patents, copyright, and trademarks the right way to control information? What is the future's effect and the dynamics of information, if “protect” it? As it is known, digital information can be perfectly copied and transmitted around the world, because of the digital technology and the internet.

The book is organized into two major areas. The first part assesses the role of the digital information in the science and technology development. Emphasis is given on scholarly communication as the three out of seven chapters are referred to this subject. The interested point is that both library's and publisher's perspective is presented in a holistic view. In a manner, it helps the reader understand the possibilities and the risks that the e‐publishing experience offers in terms of information management and discovery to develop and preserve intellectual capital. Part two addresses the advantages of building the digital system as a tool for heritage preservation as well as the problems and the pitfalls of the potential project, the focused efforts toward sustainability. The titles of the chapters are revealing:

1. 1.

   Digital information, an overview of the landscape.

2. 2.

   Scholarly communications: the view from the library.

3. 3.

   Scholarly communications: the publishers' view.

4. 4.

   E‐books and scholarly communication future.

5. 5.

   Digitizing the past: next steps for public sector digitization.

6. 6.

   Resources discovery.

7. 7.

   Who owns the content in the digital environment?

The book is speckled with glimpses supplied by leading professionals who share their beliefs and questionings in leading successful projects. For those who are involved in digitizing information or building digitization projects is proper this book. Although it should not be thought of as a recipe or a key for success, it provides the necessary tools to use in doing the beginning. The book addressed to a wide audience. The target groups that should read the book are the students of LIS as well as the professionals in libraries and documentation and information centres that create digital collections and repositories. The writers show how the conception, development, and application of digitization of the information is challenged and enhanced today, not without problems and barriers. They also probe the claims made of information retrieval and users, emphasising in the presumptions that create the virtual worlds.

It is an intelligent, practical, well‐informed and well‐written investigation, of important issues on the various topics about digital information. The book itself is well produced and includes index and expanded bibliography.