Knowledge Leadership Associates » information behavior

The future: how will e-books affect libraries and the culture of reading?

Peter G. Underwood — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:14:12 +0000

Val Skelton has an interesting set of comments on the future of e-books in the 8 December 2011 issue of Information today Europe, where she reviews the proceedings of Online Information 2011 . Several speakers noted that the book industry is becoming somewhat like the music industry, with more consumers downloading material than entering a music store or bookshop. Inevitably, this will change the way in which media are marketed and will also have a profound effect on the way in which we shop, especially when the new generation of e-books become available. These are likely to offer a different experience of reading and provide better search and index facilities. What does it mean for libraries? Probably that services need to be geared to the “socially-networked” reader; however, what the impact might be in an African context has still to be explored.

The future: how will e-books affect libraries and the culture of reading? is a post from: Knowledge Leadership Associates

Looking for a new role?

Peter G. Underwood — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 06:51:05 +0000

Information today Europe carries an interesting idea: in his blog entry for 5 August 2011, Stephen Cahill proposes a new career strategy, that of becoming an information coach. He makes the point that, in an intensive and information-rich environment, many managers are finding it difficult to cope because they do not have the necessary skills to navigate the information space to find relevant information. Information overload and the difficulties of identifying reliable sources combine to make the task problematic. “Being an information coach means that you need to help a decision maker establish exactly what the key, ‘ruin or success’ dimensions are for their part of the organisation and then build the scaffolding that supports their core needs”, writes Cahill, and goes on to pose five questions that one should ask of decision-makers in order to assist in building a coaching strategy.

Looking for a new role? is a post from: Knowledge Leadership Associates

What do you remember . . .

Peter G. Underwood — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:44:55 +0000

A report, Google effects on memory: cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips, by Betsy Sparrow, Jenny Liu and Daniel Wegner of Columbia University in the United States of America presents an interesting account of how the way in which people remember information may be changing as a result of use of Internet technologies. Four studies conducted by the research team have indicated that many people now instinctively think of using a computer when faced with a problem to resolve. Whilst this may not be surprising, the consequences are: heavy users of the Internet show “much lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it”. Thus, the Google Generation is learning and remembering techniques for locating information, but not the information itself. What happens when the power goes off?

What do you remember . . . is a post from: Knowledge Leadership Associates

Are you working too hard?

Peter G. Underwood — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:09:49 +0000

Independent Online’s Business Report for 20 October 2010 reports the results of the 2010 LexisNexis International Workplace Productivity Survey conducted in the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia and South Africa. It has important implications for Knowledge Management. According to the results of the survey, South African professional workers spent, on average, 9.5 hours a day of the working week at their workplace, longer than any other country group included in the study. In addition, “the survey found that the amount of information workers have to manage for their jobs continues to increase at an alarming rate, with much of it irrelevant to employees getting their jobs done”. Not surprisingly, 82% of the South African respondents wished to be able to spend more time in using the information rather than organizing it; 88% indicated that the inability to find relevant information was a major time-waster and that this was having a deleterious effect on their productivity. The survey concluded that “Workers believe they could be more productive at work if the tools they had access to were designed to work the way that they worked.”

Are you working too hard? is a post from: Knowledge Leadership Associates

Forthcoming Courses 2011

gretchensmith — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:24:53 +0000

Forthcoming Courses 2011 is a post from: Knowledge Leadership Associates