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Gail Bader is Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. A cultural anthropologist, Bader’s research interests include educational anthropology, the cultural construction of work, computing and technology, and U.S. and Japanese culture.John M. Budd is Professor and Associate Director of the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri – Columbia. He is the author of numerous journal articles and books, including The Academic Library and Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science.Bambi Burgard has served as Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs/Student Achievement at the Kansas City Art Institute since May 2002. Upon completion of her undergraduate education, she began doctoral study in counseling psychology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she earned her Ph.D. in 1999. She completed her predoctoral and postdoctoral internships at the University of Missouri-Kansas City counseling center.Harvey R. Gover is on the library faculty of Washington State University (WSU) Libraries and is the Assistant Campus Librarian for WSU Tri-Cities. Formerly, he was Public Services Librarian, Tarleton State University, a branch campus of Texas A&M. He was a principal author of the 2000 edition of ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services.William Graves III is Associate Professor of Humanities at Bryant College in Smithfield, Rhode Island. A linguistic anthropologist, Graves is interested in the diverse roles that language and communication play in social and cultural change. He has conducted fieldwork on issues of social and cultural change among Native Americans, in diverse organizational settings in the U.S., in enterprises undergoing privatization in Russia and, most recently, among small-scale entrepreneurs in Belarus.José-Marie Griffiths served as the Chief Information Officer at the University of Michigan and Vice Chancellor for Information Infrastructure at the University of Tennessee. She was responsible for strategic IT planning; the development and implementation of academic and administrative computing, telecommunications and networking activities; and IT alliances with external organizations. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her contributions to information science, the development of the IT industry, and support for women in computing. She currently holds an endowed chair and professorship in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and is Director of the University’s Sara Fine Institute for Interpersonal Behavior and Technology.John B. Harer has been a school and academic librarian for over twenty-seven years. As an academic librarian, he has held various positions in access services, reference, and personnel administration. He is currently the Director of the Library at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC.Donna Meyer’s career has included management of computer labs, teaching computer skills, designing curricula that integrated information skills into core subject areas, creating web sites, and managing library collections. She currently works as Director of Library Resources at Northcentral University in Prescott, Arizona, providing quality online graduate research services.Rush Miller has been Hillman University Librarian and Director of the University Library system at the University of Pittsburgh for eight years. He serves as co-chair for the Association of Research Libraries e-Metrics Project. Miller is active in the profession and writes regularly on library management, international librarianship, diversity, digital library content and e-Metrics.James M. Nyce, a cultural anthropologist, is interested in how information technologies are used in and can change workplaces and organizations, particularly in medicine and higher education. A docent at Linköping University, Nyce’s research interests include the historical, social aspects of library and information science, the design and evaluation of information systems, and information use in science and medicine. Nyce is Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Management, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, and Visiting Associate Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis.Charles Oppenheim is Professor of Information Science at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK. His main professional interest is where the law interacts with information services. He is also interested in knowledge management, measuring the value and impact of information, citation studies, bibliometrics, national and company information policy, the electronic information and publishing industries, ethical issues, chemical information handling, patents information and policy issues related to digital libraries and the Internet.Roswitha Poll is chief librarian of the University and Regional Library Münster. From 1991 to 1993 chair of the German Association of Academic Librarians, since 1997 chair of the German Standards Committee for Information and Documentation. She chaired the IFLA group for the handbook on performance measurement in libraries and is now convener of the ISO working group for the International Standard of Library Statistics and member of the ISO group for performance measurement. She is working in national and international groups on collection preservation, quality management, statistics and cost analysis in libraries.Mary Jane Rootes is a Public Services librarian at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. She worked previously at the Pitts Library of Andrew College in Cuthbert, Georgia.Sherrie Schmidt is the Dean of University Libraries at Arizona State University. She began her tenure at ASU as Associate Dean of Library Services in 1990 and was named Dean in 1991. Prior to that, she worked at Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, the FAXON Company, the University of Texas at Dallas, AMIGOS, the University of Florida, and Ohio State University. Most of her professional activities relate to the use of technology in libraries.Joan Stenson is a Research Associate in the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK, where she is currently undertaking a doctorate.Richard Wilson is Professor of Business Administration and Financial Management at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK. He has inter-disciplinary interests in the valuation of information assets. His publications reflect his research interests in management control, financial control, marketing control and strategic control.

This paper reports first stage findings from an ongoing three‐year research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB). The research is being conducted jointly by the Department of Information Science and The Business School at Loughborough University. Information assets of organisations are identified and attributes of information assets from the information science literature are discussed. Finally, future research plans for practical testing of attributes of information assets using case studies are briefly outlined.

This paper presents the major findings of recently completed research in the UK concerning the attributes of information as an asset and its impact on organisational performance. The research study employed an automated information asset- and attribute-scoring grid exercise and semi-structured open-ended interviews with 45 senior UK managers in four case study organisations. The information asset-scoring grid was developed to provide a simple visual representation of information assets and attributes using Excel charts. The semi-structured open-ended interviews aimed to identify the attributes of information assets considered significant by 45 senior UK managers and to explore relevant issues such as the value of information and organisational effectiveness.

The resource-based view of information was central to the development of an “information economy.” It was economists such as Machlup (1962) and Porat (1977) who pioneered the idea of an “information economy.” Cooper (1983, p. 12) identified Machlup as the first proponent of an “information economy,” a new sector of the economy made up of: …a group of establishments – firms, institutions, organisations, and departments, or teams within them, but also in some instances, individuals and households that produce knowledge, information services or information goods, either for their own use or for use by others (Machlup, 1962, p. 228).Porat (1977) took an alternate approach to that of Machlup (1962) in focusing, not on the producers of knowledge, information services or goods, but on the information activities themselves. Porat’s (1977) fundamental unit of analysis were information activities and these comprised the building blocks of an “information economy.” These information activities included: …all the resources consumed in producing, processing, and distributing information goods or services (Porat, 1977, p. 2).The “information economy” itself has been characterised by a flexibility and dynamism which has raised awareness of the importance of information. However, these two approaches to the “information economy” have resulted in development of a wide and often contradictory range of attributes of information. In particular, the value of information has been extremely difficult to identify or to quantify. As a result, the role of information in improving business performance has been largely unrecognised. Too often senior managers have focused on the costs of information rather than the benefits.

Michael Carpenter is an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science at Louisiana State University. He holds a Ph.D. in librarianship from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles. Prior to pursuing a career in academia, Dr. Carpenter worked at the Library of Congress and was the chief financial officer for an industrial building contractor in Los Angeles.