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Libraries in the digital ecology: reflections and trends
Reflections and trends
Francisco-Javier Garcı´a-Marco Facultad de Filosofı´a y Letras, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
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Received 28 December 2009 Revised 15 January 2010 Purpose – This paper sets out to address the issue of the impact and evolution of digital libraries and Accepted 18 January 2010
Abstract
information services using the concept of information ecologies. Design/methodology/approach – After setting the perspective, digital libraries are explored from their functional logic inside the social subsystem that deals with transferring knowledge in the form of information among people and generations. The current landscape is then presented, which is complicated by the enormous technological shift in course. The concept of information ecology is useful for reducing this complexity. Findings – Trends affecting modern information ecology in which digital libraries are evolving are studied. Specifically, eight noteworthy processes in this development are analyzed: ubiquity of information management; digital convergence; technological standardization and leverage; the surging of a worldwide space of collaboration, and competition; swift advances in the international division of informational work; the transformation of the physical information units toward the provision of proximity services; the entry of new agents in the field; and the growing emphasis on data management. Originality/value – The changing environment in the libraries field is explored using the concept of information ecologies. Some of the most important trends in the digital environment are identified and their effect on the social and economical functions of libraries is shown. Information ecology is very complex, with many actors, and libraries have some niches ensured (heritage preservation, proximity services . . .), though others could be better performed by emerging full-digital organizations. Keywords Digital libraries, Information society, Ecology Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction: libraries in the digital revolution The world of modern information is truly complex. We are in the middle of a big change in our information infrastructure affecting all aspects of our societies and culture. We are swiftly leaving an information infrastructure based on symbols fixed on paper (and, lately, film) and moving towards one that is digital and internet-based. The most profound change under the digital revolution is automation. Automation of documents, a major secondary trend, has progressed from the mere production and distribution of documents to the processing of the symbolic expressions that codify knowledge – calculus in a wide sense. This process is exemplified by the evolution from the document-transferring Web 1.0 to the emerging semantic web, Web 2.0. These changes are systemic and, though the general laws that govern information management will persist, many techniques, practices and institutions are and will be arriving, mutating or disappearing. This paper has been funded by the research grant CSO2009-07619 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
The Electronic Library Vol. 29 No. 1, 2011 pp. 105-120 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0264-0473 DOI 10.1108/02640471111111460
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Of course, library and information science professionals and academia are caught in the middle of this shift: What will be the role of libraries in this new world? How will librarians be affected by an ever more automated environment? How is this role going to evolve in an increasingly globalized information landscape? What will be the role of paper collections in a more and more digital world? This paper will explore some of these issues.
106 Why and how an ecology of information During changes in information management, one needs intellectual tools to reduce the complexity of the many overlapping areas swept by the radical changes. When trying to grasp the complexity of these processes, two concepts are of particular usefulness. One concept is that of system; the other is that of ecology. Systems and ecosystems System is defined as “a set of elements interacting dynamically in pursuit of an aim” (Rosnay, 1975). The concept of system makes room for complexity and interaction, mainly throughout the notion of feedback. However, it has sometimes a deterministic sense, probably because it evolved in connection with the design of complex machines, i.e. servomechanisms. Thus, the notion of system is connected with a will to intervene, i.e. to change reality. Perhaps because of this intrinsic connotation, a specific kind of system – ecosystem – has become the paradigm to approach the complexity of the modern information world. In fact, ecosystems are the application of the concept of system to the study of systems that are not designed, but that grow naturally. Ecosystems are very intricate, with many populations of microorganisms, animals and plants coexisting and competing in multiple relations in a shared environment. The science that studies ecosystems is called ecology. Its plural form, ecologies, is used – perhaps in a hyperbolic way – as a term to denote the maximum level of complexity in ecology: the relation among a set of ecosystems, or, expressed in other ways, an ecosystem of ecosystems, a second-order ecosystem or a macro-ecosystem. From an ecology of information to information ecologies The term ecology has a long history in information science. Horton used over 30 years ago in an influential article entitled “Information Ecology” in the Journal of Systems Management (Horton, 1978). He addressed the information flows in organizations and their mapping of information. A decade later, Harris (1989) also published a seminal article on the same topic. This approach has been followed by several authors and applied specially to theorize about the impact of information and communication technologies on an organization’s information processes and to model them (e.g. Hasenyager, 1996; Davenport and Prusak, 1997). Albrechtsen and Jacob (1998) used this concept to denote the interchange of information in complex interdisciplinary groups, understood as “a diverse information ecology consisting of a complex web of interacting agents, users and technologies”. The ecology of information approach puts an emphasis on the cultural, social and psychosocial processes beyond technological processes, and tries to include information and documentation systems in their complexity (Nardi, 1998). In another line of thought, Capurro (1990) provided a macro-systemic approach complementing the micro-perspective of previous studies. This approach is more
centred in the logics of information flows inside an organization. For him, one of the central issues that an ecology of information must address is: “What are the challenges to be faced by a society (a nation or a group of nations) in which knowledge and its communication is being shaped more and more by information technologies?”. The aforementioned more theoretical approaches have been enriched during this decade with empirical studies using the concept to address the evolution of the worldwide web (Huberman, 2001; Shim and Lee, 2006), digital libraries (Hawkins, 2000), social communities on the Internet (Finin et al., 2008) and electronic government (Grafton, 2006). The need to accommodate information in complex and open environments has also been a driving force for using the concept of ecologies (Baker and Bowker, 2007). Finally, the concept of ecology has also been used in the information field to denote the issues related to the responsibility of information scientists in nature’s preservation, a sensibility that is configuring a new professional ideology and a new paradigm (Sebastia´, 2000, 2008). These previous studies use the term “ecology” in the singular, but what about the term “ecologies” in the plural? In recent years, the concept of information ecologies has been used to represent the issue of colliding media converging in a new multimedia landscape (Garcı´a-Marco, 2008), affecting the way we read and learn (Miedema, 2009). The bottom line of what all these approaches suggest is that the way in which an evolved society manages knowledge transfer is very complex, with many subsystems and logics competing and collaborating, converging and diverging. What the term “information ecologies” implies is that, to get a true understanding of the information world, it has to be studied as a system, as a totality in its whole complexity and with all its apparent contradictions. This is now much more needed because of the logic that the technological evolution is imposing towards convergence and globalization. In this article, ecology of information is used as a tool to understand a complex social information landscape, where professions, approaches, perspectives etc. compete and collaborate in an ever-changing environment. Culture and the social transfer of knowledge In the midst of the digital technological revolution, we need a dock to anchor our reflections. This anchor could be the function that libraries – digital or not – perform: helping in the transfer of culture among and inside generations. Of course, transferring requires preservation; but preservation is a secondary function to transference, and culture is transferred because it is perceived as useful. The concept of culture as socialized knowledge What is culture? Many definitions have been given. Throughout history, culture has been understood as that which makes possible civilization, in the sense, for example, of the Hellenistic, Roman or Chinese Empires. Obviously, culture-based behaviour departs from animal behaviour in that it is not inherited but learned with effort, i.e. cultivated. In more modern times, this concept was widened to include folk culture, giving dignity to “national” cultures and the practices of non-dominant social groups. Recently – but with deep roots in Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau – contra-cultural thinking and practices have questioned the advantages of current
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culture and even the advantages of culture over pure natural lives. In a revealing aporia, this criticism has resulted in the origin of new cultures – or, more properly, subcultures. Social sciences, anthropology in particular, have connected these traditions with evolutionary biology in various ways to form the modern concept of culture. If we want to avoid any assumption regarding the value of culture, we might still define it as a set of non-genetically-determined restrictions that apply to the cognitive, expressive and motor behaviour of humans who are integrated in a group to ensure their successful evolution in their environment and the reproduction of their societies and of them as individuals. Many authors use the concept of “determination” instead of that of “restriction”, but the use of “determination” might imply the assumption of a deterministic point of view. On the contrary, a restriction exists only in terms of a specific system, and any change in the system might liberate it. Anyway, culture is possible because of the remarkable plasticity of the human cognitive and emotional system. It is obvious that genetic heritage is a previous set of restrictions in itself that should not be understated. However, human beings can create rules that govern their behaviour that are not directly triggered by their genetic heritage. These rules, and all the representations of the environment, which accompany them, and make them possible, are called knowledge. When an established group accepts individual knowledge – or builds it in a process of communication – as a common interest, this knowledge becomes part of the culture. It must be stated clearly that accepting knowledge as culture is a process that includes grading, and it does not imply necessarily complete acceptance or conformity. For example, weighting in terms of acceptable or normative behaviour can be accepted as a reference for discussion. To sum up, cultural restrictions govern how their world is perceived, how the members of a society apprehend their world, how they produce and reproduce and how they communicate and relate among them. Culture is socialized knowledge and the reproduction of a society requires that culture becomes again knowledge in the minds of the individuals. So societies are built on culture, though the determination is bi-directional. To succeed, a culture must be a compromise among the interests of the human individuals, the collective ones of the groups they belong to and the sustainability of their environment. On the other hand, culture also creates restrictions, so that even cultural changes must occur inside the logic of the previous cultural frame. Social information: the social system of knowledge transfer New members, groups and institutions inside a culture must be previously encultured, at least up to a functional point. This process of enculturation requires the social transfer of knowledge among generations and among individuals as they mutate their position in the social system. Knowledge is a crucial aspect of their adaptation to a changing environment – through the creation of new knowledge. However, this is also a key aspect for the reproduction of societies, which requires the transmission of general and specialized knowledge. Knowledge transfer is realized through communication, a process in which knowledge is transformed into symbolic information, and served through
documentation, the process of storing messages in external memories to ensure their preservation (see Figure 1). Usually, knowledge is seen as an inner representation in an individual’s cognitive system; and information, as objective and transferred knowledge available in a message or even – if stored – in a document. In any case, knowledge is something quite inapprehensible that can only be precisely grasped under the form of information, an objective manifestation of knowledge aimed at transferring it among intelligent systems. From an informational point of view, i.e. in relation to the preservation and retrieval of knowledge records, knowledge is only interesting as far as it conveys new information. In this case, the issue is to cast this new knowledge as information, and adequately preserve and disseminate it. From this point of view, knowledge is potential information not stored in knowledge records, and information management can be seen as the set of available methods for preserving and disseminating knowledge in a society.
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Understanding the library ecosystem and its role in the knowledge transfer process How do libraries cooperate in the knowledge transfer process? Libraries are one of the main available bridges between available knowledge and knowledge gaps. However, they are only a part of a huge group of industries (see Figure 2) that cooperate and compete in permanently pumping information to users and, more generally speaking, in developing a series of activities to connect information demand with information supply (see Figure 3). In fact, there is a social subsystem specifically devoted to supporting information transfer, which is especially complex and which constitutes the immediate context of libraries. Thus, the knowledge transfer function is not exclusive to libraries. There is a whole world of alternative channels through which social knowledge circulates, and a whole
Figure 1. Complementary perspectives on information: as structure, symbolic representation and socialization of knowledge (communication)
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Figure 2. Information industries
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Figure 3. Information channels and the preservation of knowledge records
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set of competing industries maintaining them. Figure 3 deals with some of the main channels, which can be grossly divided into private and public channels. Public information can be defined as the information that everybody has a right to access, be it freely or by payment. The main channels for public information are commercial distribution (e.g. ISBN), broadcasting, subscriptions, Internet publishing, advertising in public spaces, public exhibitions and education. All of these have some specific purposes and business models in common, while others are different, which explains why they survive. These communications are preserved through legal depositories, libraries and private initiatives like the Internet Archive. The private sector constitutes all the communications among private individuals inside the various groups and the institutions with who they are related. Many of them are actually regulated, and must be stored for some time – or even, in the interest of the organization or the whole society, in a permanent form, i.e. in archives. Those channels can be seen as specific ecological niches with specific properties or evolutionary advantages and disadvantages. They differ in formality, extensiveness, intensity, regulation, permanency and costs, and are particularly suitable for any audience, purpose or content. As we can see in Figure 3, libraries and archives are secondary in relation to the primary communication channels. They are systems for document storage and related services, and, in a wide sense, social information memories. Historically, libraries in particular have appeared in relation to the commercial document distribution channel, and because of this are inherently challenged by the emergence of the new omni-channel: the internet. On the other hand, internet publishing does not have an established permanent storage system, and this certainly constitutes a huge opportunity that is being partially addressed by some willing players. As a secondary channel, libraries are an interface between publishing houses and users, and perform a series of value-added processes on behalf of both parties. This cycle occurs in a more general one, where both poles are knowledge creation and knowledge gaps (see Figure 4). From a functional perspective, we can divide library processes to two main groups: one related to storing and retrieval; and the other to assisting the user in accessing information. However, we must remember that libraries are not alone in this work. They depend on and work with the products and services provided by other industries (see Figure 2), which are also developing models to reach users without mediation. In fact libraries aggregate information retrieval systems, books, journals, reference databases, electronic collections that are not produced by them. As a result, there are more and more service providers and fewer and fewer collection keepers. Therefore, the business of libraries is facilitating knowledge transfer through the effective preservation and organization of public documents – public knowledge records – to ensure its social utilization so knowledge is effectively transferred. For that, they provide monitoring, storage, retrieval, and users’ information empowerment services, and have a managerial structure, to ensure the appropriate leadership, planning, and administration of this. Radical transformation of the knowledge transfer environment Digital computing and networks have transformed the knowledge transfer landscape and are altering the information ecology of the past. As a result, information and
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Figure 4. Library functions
documentation units and networks are experiencing a rapid transformation of their ecological niche. As a consequence of the internet space expansion, fed back by the parallel globalization process, information preservation and reference functions are migrating to the new digital medium; and the organization and the traditional functions of long-established information and documentation systems are being put into question. This is a question that also affects the very structure of both public and market-oriented information services. Eight noteworthy processes in this development are discussed here: information management becoming ubiquitous; digital convergence; technological standardization and leverage; the surging of a worldwide space of collaboration and competition; swift advances in the international division of informational work; the transformation of the
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physical information units toward the provision of proximity services; entry of new agents in the information field; and the growing emphasis on data management. Information management is becoming ubiquitous This first trend is obvious. However, it is important to keep this trend in mind to avoid unjust assessment of the impact of the information and communications technology revolution in the library world. Growing freedom, the ever-increasing specialization of work, the development of a services economy, ever cheaper information storage and processing infrastructures and the fact that internet information is public information are causing the information world to explode. This ever-growing universe of information requires proper management. Information management is becoming ubiquitous such that it is no more a problem but an opportunity for institutions or private individuals. For example, services like iTunes have put the emphasis on easy information management in this case of music records: acquisition, categorization, storage, retrieval, creation of ad hoc information by-products, like reproduction lists, and, of course, sharing. In a very real sense, they are personal information managers. On the other hand, information technologies have made storing of huge quantities of information very cheap. Moreover, we are learning that great quantities of information provide unique insights for research in all the facets of knowledge, especially in marketing. And this certainty is contributing to the information explosion for organizations and individuals. Finally, it must be remarked that information published on the Internet is public information, not private information. This is something that is frequently overlooked, sometimes to the detriment of many, as happens, for example, in the case of digital profiles and personal documents and opinions. So, the explosion is not only in information, but also especially in published information; expanding an area that, though huge, was not so many years ago an oligopoly or, at least, a difficult activity for most people. As a result of all these trends, the information area is in fact exploding and any challenges to traditional information work should be seen in this light. Digital convergence and the growing problem of preservation The internet is all about digital convergence. Its history is that of the progressive digital codification of alphabets, formal languages, images, drawings, sounds, film, etc. in an environment of ever-greater automation and improvement of human-machine interaction. Of course, digitalization has only been the first step in the transposition of the various information channels that modern societies use (see Figure 3) in the Internet environment, such as newspapers, music, video, radio, TV, scientific journals, books, exhibitions, education. These transpositions are in different stages of development and user acceptance, but are very advanced. The cases of music, newspapers and scientific journals are exemplary of how the fight between Internet services and traditional printed publications is being settled in favour of the former. All internet-published information has a potential for permanency. However, in a departure from traditional published information procedures – subjected to legal depositories in many countries – no provision has been done about storage. Here lies a
big opportunity for information managers. The same can be said about the realm of organizational information: intranets and extranets. In fact, the business of digital libraries is certainly and mainly about digital preservation. Technological standardization and leverage Digital publication and management technologies are becoming increasingly leveraged. They are becoming more standard, usable and accessible. More and more people have the skill to use them and, of course, they do. That is, for example, what is happening in the blogsphere, where clever and dedicated amateurs and freelancers represent the greater part of this new medium, which is also transforming and giving new blood to the traditional newspapers. Standardization and leverage is making the processes of managing information increasingly easier and cheaper, and, importantly, opening opportunities for further automation, creating new possibilities for retrieval and exploitation in the two layers that surround documents: subjects, i.e. ontologies, and data, i.e. Extensible Markup Language (XML). These new possibilities are still the realm of specialized and pilot projects, being used mainly for communication among systems, but will certainly begin to change the way in which information is published and used in every aspect of life in the near future. Finally, the process of technological leverage is finally set to affect prices and modify the current ecological relation between paper and digital for-profit editions, which is one of the main channels that still stands up to the digital empire. For many years, the price of e-books had been very near to that of their printed twins. But Amazon, for example, is now offering e-books at a 49-70 per cent discount over printed ones; a 70 per cent discount will surely sway the consumer about which to purchase. The challenge is now in the relative price of e-book readers, but big changes are expected in the next five years, probably in relation to the evolution of netbooks. Globalization: the surging of a worldwide space of collaboration and competition Another important trend is that of the competition and collaboration between producers and distributors of information increasingly occurring in globalized space. As a consequence, such important services in traditional information and documentation units as vigilance, acquisition, cataloguing and reference are more and more subjected to outsourcing, off shoring and market concentration (e.g. Thompson, Elsevier). This last decade has witnessed the birth of the first multinational global digital information system: Google. Others actors are trying to catch up with the success of Google’s footing and expansion in digital information. Swift advances in the international division of informational work In this context of globalization and digital automation, much is put into question, with more to follow. In-house cataloguing was a key function for libraries 40 years ago. Now, most libraries take their metadata from big cataloguing databases. Also, more and more libraries buy their materials together with the cataloguing records from their providers. The same has happened with other services like information systems development and maintenance, journal control and many other functions. This is even happening with reference systems, which is increasingly being served by cooperative
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networks of reference librarians over the Internet, a solution that is certainly the only way to achieve a much necessary division of work in this complex task. Something similar could happen with a greater part of the storing and circulation function in the near future. If global digital information distributors are able to give users cheap access to the digital production of publishers of many countries, will the lending function of libraries still make sense, especially when growing pressure is being put on them regarding licenses for document lending? If countries are buying digital library access for their higher education and research networks, is it not impossible that something similar might occur in the future regarding public libraries? The transformation of the physical information units toward the provision of proximity services If most of the library functions are being outsourced in a digital environment, what future lies for the libraries of today? The answer depends very much on the type of library. As mentioned previously, libraries are only a link in the chain of social knowledge transfer, and different kinds of libraries take care of different functions in this ecosystem: Though big libraries are indeed related to the permanent availability of documents, small and medium size libraries are nearer the functions of other private actors, like booksellers, which are more concerned with short- and medium-term access to documents. The current model of state-owned public libraries will be terribly challenged in the new digital world. However, one should not understate the power of public libraries as an established and well-branded communication channel and information retail centres in their communities. The function of small and medium public libraries in a society of services and in a digital information environment relies on its potential as a one-stop place for citizen information and information mediation. We are talking about libraries that really understand their users and that are specialized in their communities of reference. On the other hand, the very trend of globalization and digital library services concentration requires a complementary and compensatory evolution at the other end of the market with a strong user-centred specialization. In the case of libraries, this means transforming local information units into proximity service centres. Because of this compensatory trend, which is also very important for specialized research and professional libraries, globalization of information is not only provoking the surging of big global players, but also an explosion of niches that benefit from the big-tail effect that the worldwide web makes possible. In the medium term, it is clear that printed materials and digital material will coexist for some years to come. Printed materials will continue to be preferred for some activities like early infant reading, for example. But those networks of information service centres will progressively detach from their physical collections. In the long term, the prospect of a great network of storage libraries is grim. Libraries require big spaces – usually in premium areas – and a notable staff to take care of storing and circulation. As physical holdings become less and less used, a great pressure will grow to close them, and preserve only some “museum” or “heritage” libraries, eliminating redundancies. Their kind of libraries will continue to be a small and very specialized niche. The public network will also maintain small legacy collections directly connected with the identity and history of their local communities.
In the long term, the future of the public network of local libraries will rely on becoming information access points, where anybody can get assistance to overcome the different barriers in access to digital information and, of course, to get references from skilled librarians, who in fact will work inside the library buildings assisted by a well-organized network. On the other hand, the future for the main legal deposit public libraries as institutions of knowledge seems bright, providing they are able to function as permanent reservoirs of digital information. Some researchers are sceptic about this, and see this role being taken by global private actors. What about professional and academic libraries? Research and specialized libraries, especially university libraries, are in fact becoming information hubs, buying and interlinking services from a diverse number of providers in an ever-growing network. Their future seems also in their position as proximity information centres and as knowledge systems of their institutions. Anyway, certain intangibles should not also be understated. Some university and research libraries are cultural references and knowledge environments, which provide not only information but also inspiration and a sense of relevance. It is difficult to imagine physical libraries like Bologna, Oxford or Salamanca, to give some examples, just being abandoned or disappearing. The entry of new agents in the field Finally, the inherently multimodal character of the information phenomenon is provoking a surge in innumerable switchers between different media and communities on the whole information network in relation to the growing multimedia nature of our society. The vision of a profession of information pathfinders of Vannevar Bush (1945), engineer, and science administrator, comes inevitably to mind. Most of the work that web sites in general and bloggers in particular do on the Internet is, in fact, connecting people with other resources and people. This is essentially a reference function. Wisely, libraries are trying to integrate and assimilate this social networking world in the same way that newspapers have tried over the last few years. This brand new ever-expanding reference world is going to produce big surprises and a permanent flow of innovation and new information agents outside the current network of information professionals. This is a very promising trend. One of these surprises is going to be the merging of digital bookshops, publishing houses and digital libraries in mixed sites to offer a wide range of specialized free, feeand subscription-based services for the readers. An example of these emerging actors is the very interesting experience of Safari Books in the field of technical and management publishing. This digital bookshop offers a subscription-based digital library, allows the acquisition of e-books – it is a bookshop – and provides innovative services as preprints access. As soon as the technology advancements allow the use of digital books and journals to explode, the cost of book distribution and aggregation will fall dramatically, and this kind of services will become the new frontier in the business of distributing documents. From documents to data From the beginning of the computer revolution, more and more information is being produced outside the framework of documents, such as geographic information
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systems (GIS’s) and statistical databases. This information must be properly addressed and requires a big change in focus and methods. This issue has been repeatedly addressed from the beginning of the twenty-first century. In August 2001, the Association of Research Libraries produced a report specifically devoted to the subject (Cook et al., 2001). In the past, data management was mainly an archival problem, but not anymore. In this sense, the Internet has changed everything. On the one hand, the internet has made publishing cheaper, allowing publication of huge quantities of information that before would have been prohibitive. On the other hand, the collaboration and specialization that the Internet has made possible require that data be published. In the future, the need to manage data in connection with documents is only going to increase, especially as Semantic Web efforts and initiatives mature and unfold. The slow revolution that started in the document arena with standard generalized markup language (SGML) has matured with XML and its associated technologies. Structured documents are not merely structured information, but complex information structures. Moreover, we now have the technologies to describe and manipulate such structures. Mixed data and document structures are certainly the future, not only because of the data-processing possibilities that they allow, but also because they are one of the more promising technologies to be used against the information problems of our age: information redundancy and overflow. The other technologies are probably, on the one hand, personalization, and, on the other, collaboration tools like Wikipedia, but with an increased functionality to track and recognize individual and group contributions, because otherwise they would be unable to challenge formal publishing. A day will come when a new consensus will be reached on the need to preserve and authenticate not only documents, but also data. This is because it is the supporting layer on which discourses are built, made visible and manipulable by semantic technologies. Finally, it should be stressed that taking this approach is synergic with the new role of libraries as internet publishing and distributing points for the scientific and cultural production of their communities of reference. Conclusions As a result of all these processes, the information market in growing rapidly, promoting the advent of new agents and taking profit from all the manpower liberated by automation in other industries and services. The future seems promising, as the worldwide information space can be contemplated through the metaphor of a growing brain, where a great number of new cells and neural connections appear, while a great number also disappear in an environment of great competition and adjustments. Digital libraries can be examined under this light, because they too are altering radically the ecologies of information preservation. Projects like Google Books, Amazon’s, major electronic journal dissemination platforms, etc. are changing a world dominated by national and local players, making many tasks and projects obsolete, but also opening up new opportunities for specialization and localization. Information is only the visible part of communication processes. Though objective – “objectivizable” and automatable – communication processes are inherently human-centred, information will always be a privileged human working space even while machines and automatisms substitute for humans in many tasks.
Modern information ecologies reflect exactly both sides of the coin: growing automation versus the recognition of communication as a human space by excellence, both in work and leisure, as found in the literature written by most of the experts in digital libraries.
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Sebastia´, M. (2008), “La ecologı´a de la informacio´n: un nuevo paradigma de la infoesfera”, Pliegos de Yuste, Vol. 7 No. 8, pp. 24-36, available at: www.pliegosdeyuste.eu/n78pliegos/ n78pag23.htm (accessed September 2009). Shim, S. and Lee, B. (2006), “Evolution of portals and stability of information ecology on the web”, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Commerce: The New E-commerce: Innovations for Conquering Current Barriers, Obstacles and Limitations to Conducting Successful Business on the Internet, ACM, New York, NY, pp. 584-8. About the author Francisco Javier Garcı´a Marco achieved his PhD in Philosophy and Arts in 1994 and has been Professor of Information and Library Science at the University of Zaragoza from 1996. He has been Director of the Department of Library and Information Science and organized the LIS postgraduate programme of the University of Zaragoza, organizes annually Ibersid, a international conference in information and documentation Systems (1996), and is the director of the journal Scire and referee of several Spanish and Brazilian journals. Francisco-Javier Garcı´a-Marco can be contacted at:
[email protected]
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