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Information and misinformation: An investigation of the notions of information, misinformation, informing, and misinforming
Book reviews
147
In their description of the social uses a discontinuity is evident. The upbeat description of the accomplishments comes from the context of the industrialized nations. They are sanguine about solutions to problems connected with such things as the automated workplace and employment. When they turn to comments on dangers, the context shifts to the lesser developed world and the emphasis is taken from the works of the McBride Commission and the French Nora/Minc report. It is assumed that the benefits will be transferred and the lesser developed nations uplifted as a result. Whether the transference will occur and if it does how it will be uplifting is not discussed, merely assumed. The choice of examples does not form a coherent set, so generalization based on them is dangerous. This is one of the most serious shortcomings of the book. The book does point to several ways to overcome its shortcomings. For example, if the information industry embodies the trends and desires of a ‘calculating people’, two types of study are needed to describe this. First, as the authors note, a study of the evolutionary mechanism of the information industry has yet to be written. This study would illuminate what is new about this industry and how the new developed in the face of the old. Second, our understanding of the impacts of information technology on society generally is We need a full-scale study of impacts, based on a still too impressionistic. coherent set of criteria for judging impacts of information technology that is consistent with a sophisticated view of social and institutional change. Maybe it is too soon to expect such a study. While this book cannot serve as a baseline for such studies, until one comes along it provides the best synthesis of past work to appear. A. L. Norberg Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota
P. Wilson. Second-hand
knowledge:
An inquiry
into cognitive authority.
London:
Greenwood
Press, 1983. 210 pp. ISBN 0 313 23763 8.228.95. C. J. Fox. Information and misinformation: An investigation of the notions of information, misinformation, informing, and misinforming. London: Greenwood Press, 1983.
223 pp. ISBN
0 313 23928 2.228.95.
Both works are welcome examples of contributions to debates about serious information issues underlying the froth of practical, trivially solvable and politically expedient activities that usually engage the attentions of information scientists and librarians. Wilson’s urbane, convincing, literary style carries the reader effortlessly through a series of arguments to conclusions disturbing enough to generate counter-arguments and reasoned denials. Fox, in substantiating his claim that ‘information be understood in terms of propositions’, makes few concessions to style. His arguments are expressed in plain, serviceable, prose suited to the close and detailed analysis employed to buttress his arguments. The work is not easy reading, but it amply rewards application. Wilson’s work is an extended discussion of various issues related to the ‘apparent unconcern of librarians and information scientists for the difference between information and misinformation’. A difference, incidentally, explored
148
Book reuiews
in distinctly different style by Fox. Wilson examines the characteristics of firsthand and secondhand knowledge and the manner in which cognitive authority is acquired and invested by institutions and individuals. Conclusions emerging from these discussions are deployed in the final chapter to analyse issues associated with ‘information retrieval and cognitive authority’. In this context there is one question to answer of especial significance to information scientists and librarians. Do the latter groups, professionally responsible for information storage and retrieval as they are, possess special competence as guides to the cognitive authority of the texts handled by them in their duties? In answering this question Wilson draws attention to the disturbing unconcern of information specialists to the ‘quality of information stored and retrieved’. Qualitative evaluation is a responsibility assigned to specialists-‘questions of quality fall outside the scope of information science’. While conceding that users of books and other documents rarely expect librarians to be cognitive authorities in regard to the texts they distribute, librarians might be expected, more reasonably, to be regarded as authorities upon authorities by virtue of their skills with, and knowledge of, reference works-the latter being viewed as records of authoritative judgements. Wilson is not beguiled by such an argument, largely because the use of such tools and the interpretation of their contents is not a skill exclusive to librarians and other information specialists. In this respect the cognitive authority of the keepers of records is little different from that of their users yet, Wilson asserts, the reference and answering functions require ‘the librarian . . . to pronounce judgement on the cognitive authority of authors and texts’. The conclusion is inescapable-‘library reference service appears to be based on a contradiction: the simultaneous assertion and denial of competence to evaluate texts’. At best ‘librarians can individually acquire cognitive authority for particular persons, but librarians as a group can claim no special authority’. However, even on this analysis, is the situation of the group fixed, and beyond redemption, as is implied by Wilson? Allowing of the acquisition of individual cognitive authority within sets of circumstances where information work consists largely of individual-to-individual interchanges would appear to of course, that information form the basis of group recognition. 3 Provided, specialists were properly educated in the qualitative aspects of their craft! One may attempt to qualify Wilson’s analysis and conclusions, but there is no doubt that he presents a formidable analysis and presentation that compels attention and rethinking. It is a highly recommendable work. Fox’s work is an essay on definition. To this reviewer, at least, it represents the most sustained and successful attempt to date to pin down, and explain, the notoriously slippery concept of information and misinformation in analytical Without too much difficulty Fox demonstrates the naivety and terms. inadequacy of the various approaches to information employed commonly by information scientists. At the very least this work of demolition might be expected to purge our literature of further references to information in the limited and unreal terms of uncertainty definition. Having disposed of the commonly encountered analyses of information Fox proceeds to ‘state and analysis of information’ in association with defend . . . the propositional ‘information carefully drawn distinctions between ‘information contained’, ‘information conveyed’. As the author concedes, the transferred’ and propositional approach to information does not solve all problems. For the attempt to integrate meaning and information encounters example,
Book reviews
149
acknowledged obstacles. For information scientists the perspectives of the work are novel and illuminating. However, unlike Wilson, Fox does not relate the results of his lengthy and detailed analyses to the practical concerns of information specialists. Admittedly, the work is ‘regarded as only the first step toward a complete theory of information for information science’ but, since complete theories of anything in the social sphere may take lifetimes in their formulation and acceptance, each purported theoretical advance has to be linked, however tenuously, with relevant areas of application. Unless this link is made manifest significant theoretical contributions may be dismissed, or overlooked, by a profession overwhelmingly atheoretic in its preoccupations. Theorists in this area have to recognize the need to convince information specialists of the significance and relevance of their work. It is all too evident that the majority of information workers attend to their practical concerns without worrying unduly as to whether information is a commodity, process, event or proposition. It would be a pity if this work was dismissed, or overlooked, for such reasons, not because readers would be expected to agree with either the method or the conclusions, but because the rigour of the work could give rise to responses of equal quality and depth. Both the latter qualities are rare in this area of investigation. N. Roberts
Emlyn Lloyd (Editor). Handbook of applicable mathematics. Volume
Wiley Interscience, (Part B). 588.
1984.
ISBN
VI: Statistics. Chichester, New York: 0 471 90274 8 (Part A); ISBN 0 471 90272
The volume under review is the sixth and last part of the Handbook of applicable mathematics. It is divided into two parts, A and B, each of about 500 pages, wellprinted on good paper and firmly bound for library use. The six volumes of the handbook are to be followed by a series of guides designed for specific groups of users of mathematics including, I note with interest, sociologists and information scientists. So the core Volume VI on Statistics under review is only one component of a formidable totality. For whom is this volume intended? The introduction explains that the six core volumes are designed for the ‘professional adult’ who, ‘unlike the typical college student.’ ,. will already be motivated to seek a deeper knowledge because of problems arising in his professional work. So each core volume consists of a selection of basic topics on each of which a section, as complete as possible within itself, has been specifically prepared. The 20 topics selected for Statistics have been prepared by ten authors: one of them, Emlyn Lloyd, has written eight of the ten sections of Part A which together comprise the more basic topics while the remaining two sections of Part A and the ten sections of Part B, on the more specialist topics, have been shared among the nine remaining authors. These more specialized topics include Linear methods, Sequential analysis, Distribution-free methods, Bayesian statistics, Multivariate analysis, Time series, Decision theory and Kalman filtering. Such team-work demands careful editing and firm editorial control. The handbook is neither a textbook to be worked through from beginning to end nor is it an encyclopaedic work of reference to give quick answers to specific questions. The editors hope that readers will seek the sections most relevant to
147
In their description of the social uses a discontinuity is evident. The upbeat description of the accomplishments comes from the context of the industrialized nations. They are sanguine about solutions to problems connected with such things as the automated workplace and employment. When they turn to comments on dangers, the context shifts to the lesser developed world and the emphasis is taken from the works of the McBride Commission and the French Nora/Minc report. It is assumed that the benefits will be transferred and the lesser developed nations uplifted as a result. Whether the transference will occur and if it does how it will be uplifting is not discussed, merely assumed. The choice of examples does not form a coherent set, so generalization based on them is dangerous. This is one of the most serious shortcomings of the book. The book does point to several ways to overcome its shortcomings. For example, if the information industry embodies the trends and desires of a ‘calculating people’, two types of study are needed to describe this. First, as the authors note, a study of the evolutionary mechanism of the information industry has yet to be written. This study would illuminate what is new about this industry and how the new developed in the face of the old. Second, our understanding of the impacts of information technology on society generally is We need a full-scale study of impacts, based on a still too impressionistic. coherent set of criteria for judging impacts of information technology that is consistent with a sophisticated view of social and institutional change. Maybe it is too soon to expect such a study. While this book cannot serve as a baseline for such studies, until one comes along it provides the best synthesis of past work to appear. A. L. Norberg Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota
P. Wilson. Second-hand
knowledge:
An inquiry
into cognitive authority.
London:
Greenwood
Press, 1983. 210 pp. ISBN 0 313 23763 8.228.95. C. J. Fox. Information and misinformation: An investigation of the notions of information, misinformation, informing, and misinforming. London: Greenwood Press, 1983.
223 pp. ISBN
0 313 23928 2.228.95.
Both works are welcome examples of contributions to debates about serious information issues underlying the froth of practical, trivially solvable and politically expedient activities that usually engage the attentions of information scientists and librarians. Wilson’s urbane, convincing, literary style carries the reader effortlessly through a series of arguments to conclusions disturbing enough to generate counter-arguments and reasoned denials. Fox, in substantiating his claim that ‘information be understood in terms of propositions’, makes few concessions to style. His arguments are expressed in plain, serviceable, prose suited to the close and detailed analysis employed to buttress his arguments. The work is not easy reading, but it amply rewards application. Wilson’s work is an extended discussion of various issues related to the ‘apparent unconcern of librarians and information scientists for the difference between information and misinformation’. A difference, incidentally, explored
148
Book reuiews
in distinctly different style by Fox. Wilson examines the characteristics of firsthand and secondhand knowledge and the manner in which cognitive authority is acquired and invested by institutions and individuals. Conclusions emerging from these discussions are deployed in the final chapter to analyse issues associated with ‘information retrieval and cognitive authority’. In this context there is one question to answer of especial significance to information scientists and librarians. Do the latter groups, professionally responsible for information storage and retrieval as they are, possess special competence as guides to the cognitive authority of the texts handled by them in their duties? In answering this question Wilson draws attention to the disturbing unconcern of information specialists to the ‘quality of information stored and retrieved’. Qualitative evaluation is a responsibility assigned to specialists-‘questions of quality fall outside the scope of information science’. While conceding that users of books and other documents rarely expect librarians to be cognitive authorities in regard to the texts they distribute, librarians might be expected, more reasonably, to be regarded as authorities upon authorities by virtue of their skills with, and knowledge of, reference works-the latter being viewed as records of authoritative judgements. Wilson is not beguiled by such an argument, largely because the use of such tools and the interpretation of their contents is not a skill exclusive to librarians and other information specialists. In this respect the cognitive authority of the keepers of records is little different from that of their users yet, Wilson asserts, the reference and answering functions require ‘the librarian . . . to pronounce judgement on the cognitive authority of authors and texts’. The conclusion is inescapable-‘library reference service appears to be based on a contradiction: the simultaneous assertion and denial of competence to evaluate texts’. At best ‘librarians can individually acquire cognitive authority for particular persons, but librarians as a group can claim no special authority’. However, even on this analysis, is the situation of the group fixed, and beyond redemption, as is implied by Wilson? Allowing of the acquisition of individual cognitive authority within sets of circumstances where information work consists largely of individual-to-individual interchanges would appear to of course, that information form the basis of group recognition. 3 Provided, specialists were properly educated in the qualitative aspects of their craft! One may attempt to qualify Wilson’s analysis and conclusions, but there is no doubt that he presents a formidable analysis and presentation that compels attention and rethinking. It is a highly recommendable work. Fox’s work is an essay on definition. To this reviewer, at least, it represents the most sustained and successful attempt to date to pin down, and explain, the notoriously slippery concept of information and misinformation in analytical Without too much difficulty Fox demonstrates the naivety and terms. inadequacy of the various approaches to information employed commonly by information scientists. At the very least this work of demolition might be expected to purge our literature of further references to information in the limited and unreal terms of uncertainty definition. Having disposed of the commonly encountered analyses of information Fox proceeds to ‘state and analysis of information’ in association with defend . . . the propositional ‘information carefully drawn distinctions between ‘information contained’, ‘information conveyed’. As the author concedes, the transferred’ and propositional approach to information does not solve all problems. For the attempt to integrate meaning and information encounters example,
Book reviews
149
acknowledged obstacles. For information scientists the perspectives of the work are novel and illuminating. However, unlike Wilson, Fox does not relate the results of his lengthy and detailed analyses to the practical concerns of information specialists. Admittedly, the work is ‘regarded as only the first step toward a complete theory of information for information science’ but, since complete theories of anything in the social sphere may take lifetimes in their formulation and acceptance, each purported theoretical advance has to be linked, however tenuously, with relevant areas of application. Unless this link is made manifest significant theoretical contributions may be dismissed, or overlooked, by a profession overwhelmingly atheoretic in its preoccupations. Theorists in this area have to recognize the need to convince information specialists of the significance and relevance of their work. It is all too evident that the majority of information workers attend to their practical concerns without worrying unduly as to whether information is a commodity, process, event or proposition. It would be a pity if this work was dismissed, or overlooked, for such reasons, not because readers would be expected to agree with either the method or the conclusions, but because the rigour of the work could give rise to responses of equal quality and depth. Both the latter qualities are rare in this area of investigation. N. Roberts
Emlyn Lloyd (Editor). Handbook of applicable mathematics. Volume
Wiley Interscience, (Part B). 588.
1984.
ISBN
VI: Statistics. Chichester, New York: 0 471 90274 8 (Part A); ISBN 0 471 90272
The volume under review is the sixth and last part of the Handbook of applicable mathematics. It is divided into two parts, A and B, each of about 500 pages, wellprinted on good paper and firmly bound for library use. The six volumes of the handbook are to be followed by a series of guides designed for specific groups of users of mathematics including, I note with interest, sociologists and information scientists. So the core Volume VI on Statistics under review is only one component of a formidable totality. For whom is this volume intended? The introduction explains that the six core volumes are designed for the ‘professional adult’ who, ‘unlike the typical college student.’ ,. will already be motivated to seek a deeper knowledge because of problems arising in his professional work. So each core volume consists of a selection of basic topics on each of which a section, as complete as possible within itself, has been specifically prepared. The 20 topics selected for Statistics have been prepared by ten authors: one of them, Emlyn Lloyd, has written eight of the ten sections of Part A which together comprise the more basic topics while the remaining two sections of Part A and the ten sections of Part B, on the more specialist topics, have been shared among the nine remaining authors. These more specialized topics include Linear methods, Sequential analysis, Distribution-free methods, Bayesian statistics, Multivariate analysis, Time series, Decision theory and Kalman filtering. Such team-work demands careful editing and firm editorial control. The handbook is neither a textbook to be worked through from beginning to end nor is it an encyclopaedic work of reference to give quick answers to specific questions. The editors hope that readers will seek the sections most relevant to