RE: Article in "Inside HigherEd"

["Sally Morris \(Morris Associates\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

The quantity will go on increasing, I'd guess at least at the 
3-3.5% it has done for many decades (possibly higher, with the 
addition of the body of East Asian scientists with relatively 
high funding and a strong political motivation to raise the 
international profile of their work, though if the recession hits 
research funding - as seems to be the case - there may be a 
temporary slowing).

What's more, access to that quantity is also improving steadily, 
thanks to e-journals and increasingly inclusive forms of 
licensing.

So I agree with Robert that filtering is the increasingly 
pressing issue for researchers...

Sally Morris
Email: sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: richards1000@comcast.net [mailto:richards1000@comcast.net]
Sent: 26 March 2009 02:13
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Cc: Joseph Esposito; Sally Morris (Morris Associates)
Subject: Re: Article in "Inside HigherEd"

Thanks to everyone for a very interesting exchange.  This is my
understanding of the exchange so far.  Respecting the issue of information
overload, some economists employ the idea of "consumer search costs."  See,
e.g., Landes & Posner, Trademark Law: An Economic Perspective, 30 Journal of
Law & Economics 265 (1987).  An excess of potentially relevant, accessible
information imposes substantial information-processing costs on the user of
information ("consumer search costs").  Joe Esposito and Sally Morris
identify two well-tested tools for lowering consumer search costs: (1)
brands and (2) technology that retrieves, filters, organizes, and enables
the management of information ("information-management tools").  I agree
with Sally Morris that at what point in the information life cycle, and on
whom, the toll to produce quality information (i.e., payment for information
production costs) is assessed are separate issues from, and are often
causally unrelated to, consumer search costs.  The principal causes of high
consumer search costs appear to be (a) a high quantity of potentially
relevant, accessible information, coupled with (b) comparatively low
effectiveness of brands and consumers' information-management tools.
Consumer search costs decline to the extent that the quantity of potentially
relevant, accessible information declines, or the effectiveness of brands
and/or consumers' information-management tools increases.  As Joe Esposito,
Sally Morris, and others rightly point out, nothing (neither tolls, nor
anything else) appears to be reducing the quantity of potentially relevant,
accessible scholarly information.  Accordingly, brands and consumers'
information-management tools would seem to warrant substantial attention
from those of us who are concerned with lowering scholars' consumer search
costs.  (Lowering such costs appears to be the meaning of Ranganathan's
"law": "Save the time of the reader.")

Dean Coates's article suggests that information-management tools for some,
and perhaps most scholars, might still need substantial improvement.  I
agree with Jan Velterop that knowledge-level and other "intelligent"
features could greatly improve the effectiveness of scholars'
information-management tools.  I agree with those who have argued on this
list that what is needed is the wide availability of effective, intelligent,
end-user information-management applications that are built in to scholars'
reading devices (handhelds, PCs, ebook readers, etc.), and that operate to a
very great extent automatically and invisibly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Robert C. Richards, Jr., J.D.*, M.S.L.I.S., M.A.
Law Librarian & Legal Information Consultant
Philadelphia, PA
richards1000@comcast.net
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