Re: Article in "Inside HigherEd"

[richards1000@comcast.net]

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.

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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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