Digital Consumers: Re-shaping the Information Profession (Facet Publications

by David Nicholas (Editor)

The information professions - librarianship, archives, publishing and, to some extent, journalism - have been rocked by the digital transition that has led to disintermediation, easy access and massive information choice. Professional skills are increasingly being performed without the necessary context, rationale and understanding. Information now forms a consumer commodity with many diverse information producers engaged in the market. It is generally the lack of recognition of this fact amongst the information professions that explains the difficulties they find themselves in. There is a need for a new belief system that will help information professionals survive and engage in a ubiquitous information environment, where they are no longer the dominant players, nor, indeed, the suppliers of first choice. The purpose of this thought-provoking book is to provide that overarching vision, built on hard evidence rather than PowerPoint 'puff'. The authors of the acclaimed CIBER Google Generation study, and an international, cross-sectoral team of contributors has assembled together for this purpose. Key strategic areas covered the digital an introduction and philosophy the digital information marketplace and its the end of exclusivity the the growth of the informed purchaser the library in the digital age the psychology of the digital information consumer the information-seeking behaviour of the digital case study - the virtual scholar the Google myths and realities about young people's digital information behaviour trends in digital information consumption and the future where do we go from here?
Readership : No information professional or student can afford not to read this far-reaching and important book.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2008

About the author

David Nicholas received the Ph.D. in 1967 from Brown University under the supervision of Bryce Lyon. He taught at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln from 1967 until 1989, then moved to Clemson University, where he retired in 2006 as Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor Emeritus of History. After beginning his career as a historian of the Flemish cities in the fourteenth century, he has more recently studied broader patterns of comparative urbanization, law, and institutions and expanded his geographic focus to include late medieval Germany. He has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society. Professor Nicholas has written numerous book chapters and articles in such journals as The American Historical Review, The English Historical Review, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, Past and Present, and Annales. Économies. Sociétés. Civilisations.