From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World

Citation

Calvert, P. (2001), "From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World", Online Information Review, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 214-222. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2001.25.3.214.2

Christine Borgman is Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and a highly respected writer and thinker in the field of information storage and retrieval. She has been involved with many of the pioneer developments of digital libraries. This means that she is very well qualified to attempt an answer to the question that has intrigued information managers for the past decade: Will new information and communication technologies create a revolution similar to that which followed Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, or is this evolutionary change in which we adapt behaviour and organisations to the new technologies and media? This book is remarkable in its sweep and vision, taking us across a range of disciplines and still displaying a mastery of detail when necessary. Despite the broad‐brush approach, the central theme does not stray far from Borgman’s key point, which is that social institutions must retain a human‐centred focus despite all the potential of technology to do wondrous things. Ultimately, technology exists to improve the lives of ordinary people.

The chapter on publishing will serve to demonstrate her approach. Most writers would be content with a comparison between the merits of traditional print‐on‐paper publication against the benefits of electronic publishing. She covers this fairly familiar territory with an assured hand, explaining the various advantages of e‐journals put forward by writers such as Odlyzko and Okerson, including speed, supposed cheapness, flexibility, etc. For the contrary side she points out that some of Odlyzko’s costing looks suspect, but for the most part her focus is on the human side of scholarly communication. This chapter is titled “Books, Bytes, and Behavior” for a good reason, because after an initial discussion of the technical aspects of publication, she turns her attention to the behavioural side of the information cycle that is all too often ignored by advocates of new technology. Scholars, she points out, make decisions about where to publish and what to read that are based on subjective judgements of journal prestige and standing within the discipline.

Proceeding from this point, Borgman goes on to discuss other behavioural aspects of scholarly activity such as information seeking (in which she draws upon Dervin’s theories) and the way in which scholars from different disciplines use the literature. Although there is not a great deal original here, and one would still use other sources for a detailed argument – it is impossible to go past Communicating Research by Meadows (Academic Press, 1998) if you really want to get inside scholarly communication – this book synthesises the arguments so well that it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in scholarly publishing.

No doubt this book will become a modern classic. It will be a bookmark in the literature to which other writers refer continuously. It scores highly in every way, from Borgman’s scholarship, right through the index, the very full bibliography, to even the physical appearance of the book itself. Congratulations to the author and all at MIT Press associated with this work, which is absolutely essential to all involved with information management, scholarly communication and the human aspects of new technologies.