|
|
| Volume 15, Number 6 • June 1998 |
The conference officially opened with welcoming remarks by Tom Hogan, president of Information Today, Inc. He noted how far the industry had come in the 19 years of the conference, and observed that "the only constant in our business is change." He then introduced a representative from the office of New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who presented a proclamation on the 100-year anniversary of the H.W. Wilson Company (located in New York's Bronx borough) to Harold Regan, Wilson's president and CEO.
One measure she reported was of particular interest. She noted that "FirstSearch is very high for use but their prices are low so they don't appear in the top revenue vendors. FirstSearch's online time was more than four times that of DIALOG, but DIALOG's revenue was about 10 times that of FirstSearch." This comment stood out because of the heated buzz of discussions at the meeting created by the Dialog Corporation's recent announcement of changes to its pricing. For all those bewildered and stunned folks who asked, "Just what is a DialUnit?" see the news story on page 1.
Williams also discussed some of the content issues related to Internet resources—specifically quality, reliability, and archiving. To answer the concern of some publishers that Web availability would cannibalize their print products, she related several success stories. For example, Thomas Register has generated "tens of millions of dollars" by providing basic listings of manufacturers for free on the Web and in-depth listings in their print product. Her quick overview of technological trends led nicely into the topic of the keynote speech on sharing of knowledge within organizations.
Weissman presented his view of the main challenges facing us. The first challenge is the information, most of which exists as unstructured data. As he put it, the problem is still finding a needle in the haystack, but the haystack is getting bigger. The next steps in manageability will include metadata, context, and automated classification tools. The second challenge is dealing with users, who will require conceptual or knowledge maps and the ability to browse and navigate, not just search.
The third is technology. We are only at the beginning of having real knowledge tools, said Weissman. We have moved from text indexing and document management to groupware and push solutions. We are currently in an era of knowledge mining, working with natural language, metadata, collaborative agents, and content discovery tools. The next steps in the "knowledge warehouse" framework will employ data integration, inference, task-oriented retrieval, and pinpoint questioning. There is a clear role here for librarians to integrate technological developments and human capital.
Our information ecology is the fourth challenge. Weissman recommends picking pragmatic, achievable targets, and he stressed that it is critical to distinguish knowledge management from information technology functions.
The track on search engines and Internet searching was predictably popular and lively. Speakers discussed evaluation projects; new software solutions; research on search and retrieval, users' search behavior, and customizing systems; and more. The track immediately followed a plenary presentation by well-known industry consultant Steve Arnold that showcased some of the leading-edge search systems. He presented examples that stretched the audience to new ways of thinking about navigating and presenting information, such as employing inference clustering, or flying into a subject area with a 3-D visualizer, or using storyboards for organizing multimedia.
Information providers are facing maturing markets for their traditional services, along with growing price sensitivity and a shifting competitive environment that allows new niche players. He advised providers to build vertical communities with customized services, and to make it easy to incorporate data and content seamlessly into intranets.
Information professionals are facing a rapidly changing environment with a plethora of choices, while experiencing budget constraints and unfavorable public relations. Dunn advised them to embrace the Internet, study and understand their employers' businesses, be willing to learn and adapt, and communicate using an active marketing program.
He acknowledged that there were a number of legal/policy barriers to growth in the information industry, including intellectual property protection, liability, jurisdictional disputes, taxation, and privacy. Resolution of these issues will require cooperation between information providers and information professionals. He urged us to remember some key points: Quality counts, brands matter, the Internet is just a delivery medium, and we should not lose sight of the content. He reinforced the message in Weissman's keynote on the role of information professionals in filtering and evaluating, both in what he had to say and in how he said it. Ron Dunn has the ability to sort and filter through complex topics and issues and state things clearly. I am always grateful for a chance to hear his perspective on the industry. He generated some interesting audience questions on pricing, aggregating material, archiving the Internet, and quality.
He also raised some important societal questions about using computers in education, serving disadvantaged populations, and government communication with citizens. He gave us a lot to think about as did all the sessions.
One newcomer in the hall was Arthur Andersen. Andersen's KnowledgeSpace is a new Internet service for business (http://www.knowledgespace.com) that offers integrated access to news, analysis, benchmarking, competitive research, etc.
Also, briefly noted, were the following:
Paula J. Hane is contributing editor of Information Today. She can be reached at paula.hane@mci2000.com.
Table of Contents
|
Information Today Home Page
|