Information+Life+Cycle


 * Information Life Cycle Highlights**

· There is motivation to create information (money, fame, requirements for job/school, ego, etc.) · Must take into consideration the authority or credibility of creator Example: J.K. Rowling begins writing an encyclopedia about all things dealing with Hogwarts
 * Stage 1: Creation**

Example: Rowling's editor looks over her draft
 * Stage 2: Reviewing and Assessing I**
 * Deals with issues of quality
 * Does information have value, quality, relevance?
 * Transitional stage
 * Acts as a gatekeeper or filter (letting in good, keeping out bad)
 * Experts, peers review
 * Look for bias in this part of the process: personal, cultural

Example: Rowling and the publisher decide on what the book will look like in size, font character; audio version of book? braille version?
 * Stage 3: Packaging/Producing**
 * Physical reality of information (publication or dissemination)
 * Best format is decided
 * Decision as to package often based on economics

Example: The publishing company prints the book, gives it an exciting cover; News people talk about some new info about Gringott's bank that we didn't know previously
 * Stage 4: Repackaging/Recycling**
 * Re-using information
 * Project Guttenberg is one example
 * Re-use abundant in television

Example: Publisher sends out copies of the new book to book stores, libraries, book vendors
 * Stage 5: Disseminating**
 * Various ways that information gets from one producer or publisher to the user
 * Can also be from one person in an organization to another (email with attachments, list-servs, etc.)
 * Vendors come into play with print materials

Example: Catalogers (or vendors) produce original surrogate records for the items (Hardback, audio, multiple languages, &c.), which have established authorized headings for not only the author (Rowling, J. K.) and the uniform title, but also the subject matter- Call numbers are also established, so patrons will be able to find the item on the shelflist.
 * Stage 6: Identifying and Representing**
 * Information professionals enter into this stage
 * Should identify and represent information even if it’s not in our collection
 * Standards are important for this stage
 * ~ 650 || _1 **|a** Wizards **|v** Fiction. ||
 * ~ 650 || _1 **|a** Magic **|v** Fiction. ||
 * ~ 650 || _1 **|a** Coming of age **|v** Fiction. ||
 * ~ 651 || _1 **|a** England **|v** Fiction. ||
 * The above examples are from WorldCat and OCLC, the most widely used collaboration among libraries in the United States and internationally. Other standards could be used, depending on the institution.

Example: Book critics give rave reviews about Rowling's new book, about how the new info about Gringott's bank lends new light to Goblins
 * Stage 7: Reviewing II**
 * Evaluating at a post-production point
 * Once the information package or product has been issued, and disseminated, people are interested in reviews
 * For IPs the interest is due to acquisitions/purchasing

Example: Library receives, in addition to regular editions of the new book, an autographed unedited galley proof. It limits this item's circulation use and stores it in a humidity and temperature controlled Special Collection environment. For the regular editions, technical services must make "triage" decisions for damaged items. Is it more practical to replace it, fix it or rebind it? Also, will the library contributes scans of their Special Collection item to a digital project, like Google Books, with the permission of the author and publisher.
 * Stage 8: Storing, Preserving and Conserving**
 * Climate control
 * Digital preservation concerns
 * When should information be converted to another format?

Example: I come to the library anxious to find the book, even though I don't know the name of it yet (I don't remember things very well); I use the OPAC to look up books by Rowling.
 * Stage 9: Interfaces**
 * Moving the focus away from the development of information and moving to the user and the information together at various types of interfaces
 * Can be software, people, an organization, a vendor
 * Library is an interface between the user and the sources needed
 * Browsers and maps

Example: The OPAC tells me that there are 8 titles available by Rowling, listed in ABC order
 * Stage 10: Retrieving**
 * Major issue for users
 * Terms like “relevance” and “recall” are important here
 * How are records displayed?

Example: I look over the new book and realize that it will help me answer any question Jeopardy could think to ask. I want to check it out. OR the library realizes that it should have ordered more copies of it since there are 3000 people waiting for it.
 * Stage 11: Reviewing III**
 * Suitability for a particular need for particular users at a particular point
 * Involves collection development particularly community analysis

Example: The new Rowling's book is not as hot of an item anymore, so all but 3 copies are put into the annual book sale
 * Stage 12: Decline and Decay**
 * Not all information retains value or usefulness
 * Organic-like feature to information sources
 * Issues of censorship come into play

Creating - Assessing/Evaluation - Packaging/Producing - Repackaging/Recycling - Disseminating - Identifying and Representing - Reviewing II - Storing/Preserving - Interfaces - Retrieving - Reviewing III - Decline/Decay - (back to Creating)

and a simpler one:

Creation - Distribution - Maintenance - Protection - Control and Use - Storage - Destruction/Recycling

The information life cycle helps to define the "information sciences;" it is a meta-discipline central to the study and understanding of information creation, development and dissemination in //all// disciplines. The information life cycle helps us to understand the purposes and uses of a model, and to conceive relationships among information fields (our core competencies). (Note - the last sentence, pulled from 510 notes, I am not sure that I understand, or at least understand the relevance of. Thoughts?)

Thoughts from Ronda on this last note--My take on the part that says "the information life cycle helps us to . . . conceive relationships among information fields..." is that, by breaking an information process into a life cycle model, regardless of what field the process is in, you can then compare apples to apples, so to speak, by looking specifically at just the information life cycle. By comparing just the one component, the information life cycle, we can more easily see the relationships between even diverse information fields. ??? Do you think I'm getting this?

Thought from Maryke-- just to put it another way, frameworks like the information lifecycle are useful in allowing us to organize and evaluate our structures and services within the larger context of the universe of information. So instead of thinking of library acquisitions, you think of the larger context of stage 1 through stage 7 (because a good acquisitions librarian knows something about how authors, editors, publishers, booksellers and reviewers function; instead of thinking of collection management, you're thinking of stage 8 through stage 12, etc. And it is definitely also a way to identify the commonality between disparate environments. The examples given above walk you through the steps from the perspective of a librarian; try walking through them again from the perspective of a knowledge manager. The tasks may be different but the ideas behind them are the same.

//Information// includes all ideas, facts, imaginative works of the mind that have been communicated, recorded, published or distributed in any format. Information is the data that has been processed, stored, and presented in a form suitable for human interpretation.


 * [[file:Life Cycle Illustrations II.doc]]**