Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Vol. 36)

Citation

Cawkell, T. (2002), "Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Vol. 36)", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 58 No. 6, pp. 695-699. https://doi.org/10.1108/jd.2002.58.6.695.1

A book about the social aspects of writing by Hyland, selected by my able predecessor Amber Adams, was reviewed earlier by Blaise Cronin in this journal. It contains some excellent advice for reviewers. Cronin says:

According to Hyland the typical book review is framed in terms of politeness models of co‐operation and strategic reasoning: paramount is the need to avoid “face threatening acts”. The unspoken convention associated with this genre can make it difficult to call a spade a spade, but the adroit wordsmith may still be able to find ways of crafting appropriately critical observations without damaging its author’s professional standing in a public forum.

Apparently “many reviewers in electronic engineering are much more generous in their comment than those in other disciplines”. As a failed electronics engineer this reviewer appreciates that complimentary remark.

The reviewed may, of course, also have their say. The German composer, Max Reger, responding to a critical reviewer, wrote:

I am sitting in the smallest room in the house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.

I have reviewed two volumes of ARIST quite recently. The closeness of their publication dates was due to delays in completing the second of them. Volume 36, now being reviewed, was completed by the new editor, Blaise Cronin, at the beginning of the year of its publication. The previous editor, Martha Williams, used to publish it at the at the end of the year which it covers. The value of this volume is the equal of the earlier editions.

Many of the authors of the 13 chapters come from countries other than the USA – Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Malaysia, New Zealand and India. The chapters and their authors are:

1. 1.

   (1) “Scholarly communication and bibliometrics”, C.L. Borgman and J. Furner.

2. 2.

   (2) “Collaboratories”, T.A. Finholt.

3. 3.

   (3) “Computer mediated communication on the Internet”, S.C. Herring.

4. 4.

   (4) “Organisational knowledge and communities of practice”, E. Davenport and H. Hall.

5. 5.

   (5) “Discovering information in context”, P. Solomon.

6. 6.

   (6) “Data mining”, G. Benoit.

7. 7.

   (7) “Intelligence, information technology, and information warfare”, P.H.J. Davies.

8. 8.

   (8) “Competitive intelligence”, P. Bergeron and C.A. Hiller.

9. 9.

   (9) “Theorising information for information science”, I. Cornelius.

10. 10.

    (10) “Social informatics”, S. Sawyer and K.R. Eschenfelder.

11. 11.

    (11) “Intellectual capital”, H.W. Snyder and J.B. Pierce.

12. 12.

    (12) “Digital libraries”, E.A. Fox and S.R. Urs.

13. 13.

    (13) “Health informatics”, M. Russell and J. Michael Brittain.

As usual a large number of references are included with each chapter and there is a good index, but the cumulative index, present in previous editions, no longer appears. You will note that in this ARIST review, like the previous ones, I am adding some material to the parts which seem to be of particular interest

In Chapter 1, Borgman says:

Our goal in this review was to identify the research areas, methods, and theories that have been explored at the intersection of scholarly communication and bibliometrics during the decade since the last major review and to identify which of these opportunities have yet to be pursued.

The chapter contains, among other things, a comprehensive well‐balanced review of citation practices mainly based on ISI’s data, criticism is often levelled at ISI’s journal selection policy with respect to its bias against foreign language journals. However this raises another question which is not answered in the chapter. English is the lingua franca of science. How many foreign authors who would otherwise publish in their own language, submit articles to English journals in the belief that they will be more widely read? To what degree is the bias against journals not published in English, mitigated because authors choose to submit articles to English language journals?

My ViaVoice recognition system cannot get its tongue around the title word of chapter 2 – “collaboratory” – it interprets it as separate words “co” and “laboratory” which, as a matter of fact, is exactly what it is. The author of the chapter says “the term collaboratory is a hybrid.” Surely it would be hard to find enough material to write a chapter about this subject? But judging by its several pages of references, my scepticism seems unjustified.

One topic which you would expect to see in chapter 2, but which is not mentioned at all, is video‐conferencing (VC). This subject is briefly mentioned by Susan Herring in chapter 3 “Computer mediated communication on the Internet”, Herring says “video‐conferencing reduces distance and builds a relationships due to the greater richness of the channel compared to plain text”. VC was being seriously considered at least 30 years ago – notably by AT&T with their Picturephone – first demonstrated at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. It cost a great deal of money to develop. In the late seventies remarks were made about the failure of VC to take‐off:

Teleconferencing was dominated by the belief that it was predestined to occur. Societal factors (e.g. energy shortages) and new technologies for holding electronic meetings, it was believed, were the only ingredients necessary for its emergence.

Teleconferencing did not emerge because readiness factors (energy shortages, new technologies, articulate promotional statements, public attitudes) did not develop in conjunction with enabling forces (user‐oriented systems, examples of success, enthusiastic advocates, believable justification, etc.).

VC is the classic example of difficulties which arise when an IT activity receives too much hype. In an article in a 1982 issue of Data Communications it was claimed that:

There are many users and vendors who predict that teleconferencing will be as common in the office in 1990 as the typewriter is today.

Ten years later similar forecasts were being made in the Financial Times. Predictions for the US market were “$894m for 1990 and (wait for it) $8.3 billion by 1995”. But technical constraints affect performance. In television systems, for instance, channel bandwidth is much wider, picture size and number of pixels are greater, and frame repetition rate is higher. A form of Inter‐frame motion compression was used for videconferencing making rapid movement appear blurred “acceptability‐level”, whatever that is, was not achieved.

Short et al. (1976) commenting on the problems of the man at the other end during a videoconferencing session, write:

We had arranged for coffee or tea to be served and he didn’t have any. He sat there looking increasingly glum. The omission of social chat may have unexpected consequences. The busy executive may feel it advantageous to put in an appearance to chat with subordinates.

Much later a leading manufacturer PictureTel (2002), claims that:

Its high performance is redefining the way the world meets … . in 1992 it gained wide market acceptance as a strategic business tool and entered a period of rapid market expansion.

Yet in a recent article about corporate purchasing sprees, Davis (2002) states: “none of the companies acquired are video‐conferencing companies. The videoconferencing industry has been a wallflower during this acquisition dance. Here we sit at the convergence of radio and communications, two of the hottest technologies, and we are ignored by the corporate e´lite”.

An article about markets and strategies (Forward Concepts, 2002) says that VC:

… will not become a widespread application until it meets a widely perceived need. There is indeed a danger that video‐conferencing will always be a market opportunity of the future, particularly for industrial and business use.

However in the UK, academic operations seem to be proceeding apace. In 1997 a video‐conference multipoint multswitching service was launched with users on different video networks using different technologies connected to the JANET higher education and research network. ISDN 2 (128Kbit/s) or ISDN 6 (384Kbit/s) with standardised ITU H320 transmission coding were made available together with the means of scheduling and booking sessions. The topology of the system is shown in an article from the JNT Association (UKERNA, 2002).

In May 2000 a more advanced system was introduced by UKERNA – the United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association – a not for‐profit company with the objective of providing advanced communications services. The system uses H323 standards and IP protocols as are used on the Internet. It includes a central infrastructure with multipoint control units, gateways, gate‐keepers, servers, and improved security (Bolam, 2001). A consistent quality of service is to be developed for the system.

This is supposed to be a book review of reasonable length so I will confine further remarks to the last chapter which covers an important topic. Effective medical information systems represent a major challenge the world over. Their usefulness is obvious as good health is perhaps the most important attribute of any society. Activity in this field is comprehensively reviewed by Russell and Brittain in Chapter 13. The major headings are “health systems, professionals, and patients”, “evidence‐based practice and its implications”, “e‐health”, and “what does the future hold”? There is much information on the Internet about the subject – see for example (DCS, 2002). The political importance of the National Health System in the UK has prompted a number of attempts at health informatic systems. Russell and Brittain mention the seven‐year plan, inaugurated in 1998, “to provide the right information wherever it is needed in the NHS from a doctor’s surgery to any hospital accident and emergency unit”. They also say:

… progress has been slow and uneven … in the health informatics brave new world – long awaited and not yet fully realised – the human element remains central.

This cautious judgment would probably not be backed up by the press. The magazine Computer Weekly cites a number of “NHS IT disasters” costing millions of pounds. But:

… such is the sensitivity of the Department of Health to overt opposition that individual suppliers and users will only speak anonymously.

Referring to a national hospital booking system Computer Weekly reports one NHS IT manager as saying “I can think of no single system of this size that the NHS Executive has ever delivered successfully”. The general situation is discussed in the British Journal of General Practice (Keeley, 2000).