The Social Life of Information

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	Issues in Science and Technology   Librarianship
	Winter 2001

	DOI:10.5062/F4M906MB



      

    Book Reviews
    The Social Life of Information
      Lea Wade
  Science Librarian and Chair of Reference
  University of New Orleans
lwade@uno.edu  
    


     

  The Social Life of Information. John Seely Brown and Paul   Duguid. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. 320 pp. ISBN  0-87584-762-5. $25.95 cloth.
      Futurists have been foretelling the demise of print materials and the inevitable  dissolution of libraries for years. The Social Life of Information  sets to prove them wrong. John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist at Xerox Corp. and  Director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and Paul Duguid, a research  specialist for Social and Cultural Studies in Education at the University of  California at Berkeley, argue that information acquires meaning only through social  context. Their view is that the rapid increase in the creation and use of  electronic products has led to a "tunnel vision" with a single-minded focus, not  integrating the social patterns and historically relevant cultures which play into  the human field. In the same sense that print materials will always be important,  so too are the human aspects of technology. An old joke in the Internet world is  "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog." Brown and Duguid want us to recognize  that our social interaction consists of many visual cues, such that it is much  simpler to understand people in person than it is on the flat screen of an internet  web site. Which is not to say that the authors are anti-technology; they simply  want to place technology into the social context that helps people understand what  information means and why it matters. 

     The digital library is an example of the importance in understanding social  constructs within a technological world. With electronic access to materials  previously available only within the walls of the library, patrons feel more in  control of their research, and more able to self-direct their search for  information. Hidden from them are the people who make that direct access possible  -- the catalogers, web authors, selectors, designers, publishers, editors,  referees, coders, and the university itself. Without these invisible supports, the  digital library would not exist. Similarly, the authors state that the recent push  toward a "knowledge management" environment requires the need not for more  information, but for "people to assimilate, understand, and make sense of it."  Brown and Duguid are the new voice for all librarians and computer technicians who  work in virtual seclusion, no longer in dusty backrooms, but are entering into the  new age. 

     A sympathetic look at the people who make the information age possible and  worthwhile, this book is recommended for all university and public  libraries. It contains extensive endnotes and a well-documented  bibliography, including some URLs and the dates those web pages were  viewed. An index provides a quick guide to the book's contents. Readers  who enjoy this book may also want to locate an earlier article by the  authors, "Universities in the digital age." Change. July-August   1996, v26, n4, p10-20. 

    

  

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