Information management
Introduction
Although bound up with the tradition of the ‘special library’, information management differs from such earlier concepts in its focus on all kinds of information and a concern for the relationship between information provision and organizational performance. In many special libraries there had long been responsibility for managing internal documentation of various kinds, especially research reports. The history of this development is usefully explored by Black, Muddiman and Plant (2007) who note the emergence of information management concepts following the end of the First World War, with the formal organization of ‘information bureaux’ in the establishment of ASLIB (the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux) in the UK in 1924. Some techniques, however, were even older, witness Kaiser’s work on indexing (1908, 1911). Indeed, we can date many of the ideas of what is now called ‘information management’ (although ‘documentation’ is used as a near equivalent in much of Europe) to the founding by Otlet and La Fontaine of the International Institute of Bibliography in 1895 (Rayward, 1975).
The first use of the terms ‘information management’ or ‘information resource(s) management’ can be dated to the report of the US National Commission on Federal Paperwork (1977), which drew attention to the costs of handling ‘paperwork’ (which included electronic documents of all kinds) in Federal departments and in other organizations of all kinds in tendering for government research contracts. More recently, the ‘digital revolution’ and the newer Web-based technologies have transformed the handling of information in organizations and made the economic issues more apparent, to the extent that information management is now seen as having a necessary role in the management of organizations.
However, although the original use of the term clearly identified ‘information’ as the content of documents, ‘information management’ has also come to be used in other areas, usually to identify either the management of information technology (e.g., Synott and Gruber, 1981) or the management of information systems (e.g., Galliers and Leidner, 2004). To resolve this confusion of interests, a definition is needed and that provided for another encyclopedia will serve here:
The application of management principles to the acquisition, organization, control, dissemination and use of information relevant to the effective operation of organizations of all kinds. 'Information' here refers to all types of information of value, whether having their origin inside or outside the organization, including data resources, such as production data; records and files related, for example, to the personnel function; market research data; and competitive intelligence from a wide range of sources. Information management deals with the value, quality, ownership, use and security of information in the context of organizational performance. (Wilson, 2003)
The life-cycle of information
The information life-cycle is an appropriate model of information processes with which to begin a consideration of information management. Such life-cycles are well-known in various fields from informaton systems development (see, for example, the US Department of Justice systems development life cycle (US, 2003) to records management (see, for example, Penn, 1983) and usually involve some notion of the ‘death’ of a system or the destruction of records, once they have fulfilled their function. The information life-cycle is somewhat different, however, since information begets information in a cyclic process that involves no necessary destruction of the information at any point.
The figure to the right, representing the life-cycle, suggests that there are three distinct areas in the life-cycle: the creation of information, which may be the creative act of an individual, or the by-product of automatic processes (e.g., in the creation of production records in a company); the management of the embodiments of information, such as databases, electronic files and documents; and the use of information.
The creation of information, where it depends upon the actions of the individual is clearly outside the scope of any organizational unit charged with the management of information. However, where the creator makes use of software and networks, such as in the composition of this article, where the only resources used have been electronic resources and where various software systems, such as a word-processor and a Web browser have been employed, then the management of these systems in organizations will be necessary. We define this, however, as ‘information systems management’, rather than information management. Similarly, where the information is generated automatically, or semi-automatically through monitoring various processes, those processes may be carried out by information and communication technologies that can be managed and, indeed, must be managed.
One can also easily imagine a situation in which the information management unit of an organization is charged with the physical (or electronic) production of internal reports of one kind or another and, thus, must be involved in the process of creation of these documents. The sector of the diagram labelled information management covers those activities that are common to, for example, libraries managing published documents, and information systems departments managing databases–the same operations have to be designed in either case. The term content management is also applied to these activities.
The information use sector of the life-cycle is the province of the recipients of information, whether they have deliberately sought the information from the organized physical or electronic storate areas, or have received it as a result of a dissemination process based upon their needs, as understood by the system. The question for information management in relation to this sector is, "To what extent is it possible to manage the processes of information use, sharing and application so that information has a more significant impact on the performance of the organization?" This question will be considered later in this article.
The scope of information management
Although the scope of information management may be determined from the figure, there is also other work that does so more specifically. Choo (2002), for example, has produced a variant of the life-cycle based on the idea of an ‘information value chain’, proposing a range of activities:
- identifying information needs;
- assessing the relationship of sources to needs and acquiring those resources;
- organization and storage of the information;
- design and development of information products;
- distribution of information, either formally or informally; and
- information use.
Kirk (2005) has suggested that alternative definitions of information management can be related to Braman’s (1989) definitions of information as being a resource, a commodity, the perception of pattern, or a ‘constitutive force’ (i.e., having the power to affect other phenomena).
Becoming more specific still, Macevičiūtė and Wilson (2005) show, through an analysis of papers in six key information management journals, that the field is rather diffuse; a term association vizualization of the data revealed twenty groups, some of which contained only one or two papers, the largest groups being concerned with information systems development aspects of information management, information systems modelling, health information management, user services development, and medical patients’ databases.
In a brief survey for this article, an analysis of 130 news items on information management, drawn from Google’s alert service on the subject, showed that top ten topics of interest to the information industry were, in rank order: 1-content or document management systems; 2-health information management; 3-security information systems; 4-financial information systems; 5-master data management; 6-business intelligence systems; 7-customer relationship management systems; 8-legal information systems; 9-mobile information systems; and 10-records management systems. This results in what might be called a product area categorisation of content, as distinct from the more theoretical perspectives of Choo and Macevičiūtė and Wilson.
Regardless of the nature of the analysis, however, it can be seen that, although the concept of ‘information management’ originated in the era before the ubiquitous use of computers, the topic is now firmly associated with information technology. Information is generated through the use of computer systems (as this essay is), much information is available only in digital form (increasingly through Web-based technologies), information systems are computer-based systems, and information is disseminated to and shared by users largely through the use of computer networks.
Consequently, we are increasingly seeing a team approach to the management of information in organizations, with two strands: the technology strand and the information content strand.
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