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The MIT Press Essential Knowledge
Information and Society
We live in an information society, or so we are often told. But what does that mean? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a concise, informal account of the ways in which information and society are related and of our ever-increasing dependence on a complex multiplicity of messages, records, documents, and data. Using information in its everyday, nonspecialized sense, Michael Buckland explores the influence of information on what we know, the role of communication and recorded information in our daily lives, and the difficulty (or ease) of finding information. He shows that all this involves human perception, social behavior, changing technologies, and issues of trust.
Buckland argues that every society is an "information society"; a "non-information society" would be a contradiction in terms. But the shift from oral and gestural communication to documents, and the wider use of documents facilitated by new technologies, have made our society particularly information intensive. Buckland describes the rising flood of data, documents, and records, outlines the dramatic long-term growth of documents, and traces the rise of techniques to cope with them. He examines the physical manifestation of information as documents, the emergence of data sets, and how documents and data are discovered and used. He explores what individuals and societies do with information; offers a basic summary of how collected documents are arranged and described; considers the nature of naming; explains the uses of metadata; and evaluates selection methods, considering relevance, recall, and precision.
Buckland argues that every society is an "information society"; a "non-information society" would be a contradiction in terms. But the shift from oral and gestural communication to documents, and the wider use of documents facilitated by new technologies, have made our society particularly information intensive. Buckland describes the rising flood of data, documents, and records, outlines the dramatic long-term growth of documents, and traces the rise of techniques to cope with them. He examines the physical manifestation of information as documents, the emergence of data sets, and how documents and data are discovered and used. He explores what individuals and societies do with information; offers a basic summary of how collected documents are arranged and described; considers the nature of naming; explains the uses of metadata; and evaluates selection methods, considering relevance, recall, and precision.
234 pages, ebook
Published February 24, 2017
About the author
Michael Keeble Buckland
14 books4 followersMichael Buckland is Emeritus Professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and Codirector of the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative there.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 17, 2021
This book serves as a useful introduction to information science, with a heavy focus on information organization.
It is easy to read and gives a lot of everyday examples and cases to show why it is important to study information, although the book could be a lot shorter than it is.
It is easy to read and gives a lot of everyday examples and cases to show why it is important to study information, although the book could be a lot shorter than it is.
June 2, 2020
A fascinating dive into a "I-thought-I-knew-about-that" world.
I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the subject matter.
Unfortunately I thought that the author could have done a better job at both organizing the material, and describing the material.
On the organization front, there are several themes, but some are much larger subjects than others, giving the book uneven coverage over these themes. In my opinion, the author could have organized the discussion into more uniform-sized chunks.
On the descriptions, there is simply too much repetition for my taste. I found it to be distracting that the author kept coming back to certain sentences throughout the book.
Overall a good read that I'd recommend.
I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the subject matter.
Unfortunately I thought that the author could have done a better job at both organizing the material, and describing the material.
On the organization front, there are several themes, but some are much larger subjects than others, giving the book uneven coverage over these themes. In my opinion, the author could have organized the discussion into more uniform-sized chunks.
On the descriptions, there is simply too much repetition for my taste. I found it to be distracting that the author kept coming back to certain sentences throughout the book.
Overall a good read that I'd recommend.
October 12, 2018
The title is expansive, but I found the text to be modest in its target. I was expecting a kind of primer on metadata, with broad implications. Instead, I found this more tied to how to use metadata to help people find related documents. I had also expected to read about technical innovation in metadata or tagging, but this didn’t go there. I work in software sales for tools that help categorize and find documents and looked to this book to provide some concepts that I could use to explain our software features, but this didn't really meet this need. OK as a guide for librarians and interesting for index creators, but quite academic.
August 14, 2026
This is a useful book, especially for my work at the Archives of Ontario.
It's not an exciting read, and much of it was already very familiar to me. But the questions it raised were valuable:
1. Are we designing primarily around records, or around how people need to use those records?
2. Are we measuring access simply by whether a record is online, or by whether users can still discover, understand, trust and use it?
3. Where in the chain from discovery to reuse are users experiencing friction?
4. When search fails, is the problem the search engine or is the necessary description, terminology, or context missing upstream?
5. Where should we rely on machine-enabled semantic search, and where do we still need controlled vocabularies, authority structures and human judgement?
6. Can metadata connect records across people, organizations, places, events, dates and subjects?
7. Which user journeys require recall, and which require precision?
8. As discovery becomes more machine-mediated, can users still understand how records have been described, connected, transformed or selected?
9. Which archival journeys require completeness, and which require a small number of highly useful results?
Maybe a little dry, but if you work in transforming the heritage field then it’s likely worth a read.
3.5+ stars.
It's not an exciting read, and much of it was already very familiar to me. But the questions it raised were valuable:
1. Are we designing primarily around records, or around how people need to use those records?
2. Are we measuring access simply by whether a record is online, or by whether users can still discover, understand, trust and use it?
3. Where in the chain from discovery to reuse are users experiencing friction?
4. When search fails, is the problem the search engine or is the necessary description, terminology, or context missing upstream?
5. Where should we rely on machine-enabled semantic search, and where do we still need controlled vocabularies, authority structures and human judgement?
6. Can metadata connect records across people, organizations, places, events, dates and subjects?
7. Which user journeys require recall, and which require precision?
8. As discovery becomes more machine-mediated, can users still understand how records have been described, connected, transformed or selected?
9. Which archival journeys require completeness, and which require a small number of highly useful results?
Maybe a little dry, but if you work in transforming the heritage field then it’s likely worth a read.
3.5+ stars.
August 25, 2020
The book was quite well laid out, and met expectations for both the technical and sociopolitical analysis of information in the modern day. This book combined with another in this series by MIT called metadata is quite interesting. The short chapter does it some justice, but it makes this book a more pleasureable read for sure.
I would recommend this book, but the reason I gave it 3 stars was simply because it was too long for the content. The book easily could have been cut down and maintained it's value, though I will say the inclusion of appendix items with diagrams and additional detail is a nice touch.
I would recommend this book, but the reason I gave it 3 stars was simply because it was too long for the content. The book easily could have been cut down and maintained it's value, though I will say the inclusion of appendix items with diagrams and additional detail is a nice touch.
September 8, 2025
I had to read the first three chapters of this book for one of my classes I’m taking for grad school. I found it very interesting and enjoyed the chapters I read. At this point, I don’t have the time to finish just for the heck of it. But I might eventually finish it up and will definitely use it as a resource when writing papers and researching etc. I wanted credit when reading the book on my other reading app, but didn’t want it to just sit on my currently reading shelf. So, I’ve moved it to my DNF shelf for the time being. Good book though and would recommend if you’re interested in information in society.
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October 22, 2020Another course book completed. Man, Floridi really ruined me for other information science texts; his writing is so compelling and he's brilliant at exploring topics without being superfluous and overly academic. This book was informative and weirdly parallelled by modules - I would read a few chapters and then the next week on my course would address and go into detail about what I'd just learned - if quite repetitive, and at times a chore to read.
June 24, 2018
The one thing this book has going for it is it's mostly simple language vs. other academic writings. It's chapters are also manageable chunks of information.
That said, it's still an academic text, and I'm pretty unimpressed with it overall. I would not read this by choice (I am reading it for class).
That said, it's still an academic text, and I'm pretty unimpressed with it overall. I would not read this by choice (I am reading it for class).
October 15, 2024
Nah, I don’t know man. It looked kinda interesting at first. Got less interesting the more I read. And at the very end (well, to be honest, more like the second half), I had to force it. When the reading ain't natural, it is just not the right book at the right time. Not for me.
May 21, 2019
Academic, academic, academic.
April 25, 2022
Buckland gives a foundational look at information science while embedding its effects on and the way it is affected by society. This is a must read for any information science professional.
March 20, 2023
For my class on Data and Access.
November 29, 2023
I read this for class so I am COUNTING it gosh darnit.
January 20, 2024
Excellent book on the conceptual foundations of the information society. Particularly good on social dimensons of information, search systems, indexing, and other important topics.
October 28, 2024
The title is misleading, as there is very little about the sociology of information. What this is a good, short introduction to key issues in information science.
November 30, 2021
Great overview; If you're interested in information from any variety of angles, this is a good investment.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews