- Email: [email protected]
The IRM imperative: Strategies for managing information resources
Book
2001, more or less as they did in, say, the 1970s. It is debatable, to say the least, whether that is true even for 1991: motherhood and apple pie may not yet have been replaced totally by cohabiting partnership and pommes frites, but American business wins no friends by conducting spurious patent claims against small UK companies to gain the right to exploit other people’s inventions. Dr Leebaert’s rosy-tinted view of US beneficence needs to be countered by a more realistic assessment of the future international economy. The rest of the book is divided into four sections, each of three chapters, except for the last, which has an unnumbered, 13th chapter on ‘Public policy for the inform~~tion age.’ The four sections have titles which don’t always seem to mean anything in relation to the content: The rising seu; Weultk and mastery; Knowing what is known; and inf~rmuti#n and tke htc~zun ruuce. One suspects the editor must have chosen them. The rising seu covers progress in computer technology, supercomputing, and a prediction of the microprocessor in 2001. Collectively they add little to what you might have picked up from reading Computer Weekly and PC Week regularly and, as the author of 2001: u microprocessor odyssey admits, it is easier to predict on the basis of trends in the technology than it is to figure out what applications the technology will be used for, and the authors have little guidance to offer. There is a poverty of imagination in this respect and one suspects that we shall still be using the machines to do more or less the same things as at present, but faster, with more user-friendly graphical interfaces, and with some, but not a lot. of integration of text with voice, image, etc., together with a lot of networking for relatively mundane purposes. ~effl~~l rind in~~~ter~ covers the future of networking in a rather dull piece which contains such gems as, ‘Networking . is necessarily a joint endeavour’ and ‘Networking in the 21st century will be quite complex, yet it will appear very simple’; the future of online technology in a more solid chapter that underpins its forecasts
with sound technological analysis; and an excellent first chapter, “Knowledge on the future of and equality’, knowledge-based systems. The authors are restrained and realistic in their assessments of the future possibilities of knowledge-based systems and their predictions across a wide range of ideas make interesting reading: Expect a radical microelectronics
change in the
in late
1990s.
That is, as a result of the development of alternatives to transistor-based microelectronics: Expect
ease
reemcrgc
as a
computing
of
use
to
major issue in
in the early to mid
I99Os. By the mid 1YYOs. people can be expected
sources rather
as
knowledge 'MAWYN,
Expect vertical-market knowledge bases to he built to scrvc as a platform for other products by the late 19% or sooner. Expect lormal knowledge to he published in executable not just in texthooks,
in the mid to late 1090s.
Of special interest to the information science community: Expect
T. D. Wilson UK
of Sheffield,
than as know-
Icdgc processors.
form,
University
to view personal
computers
reviews
probably the result of my own particular bias, rather than any shortcoming in the authors’ presentations. The final section, Information und the human race, includes one chapter that might have been better placed in the first section: ‘In a very short time: what is coming next in telecommunications’, and two more appropriately located pieces. The first, on ‘technology and the awakening of human understanding’ deals largely with teaching and learning, strongly influenced by the ideas of Seymour Papert. while the second deals with the ‘human interface’ and the possible developments of voice input/output. object-oriented programming, display improvements, data gloves, and much more.
a hrcakthrough
J., VICtiEKS,
P. AND
FEENEY,
M.
(1991). ~~~#~?~u~j~~z UK ZQUO. London: Bowker-Sam-. ZCt.~~~~~~~~C~, 11. (1989). Informurion 2000: Insights into the coming decades in information technology. London: Pitman. ‘Cookham Group (198X). Headlines 2000: The world ns we see it. London: Hay Management Consultants. .'MOK.I.ON, M.S.S. (1991). The corpor&m of the 1990s: Information technology und organizational transformation. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. hN~~RTHCOTT, J. AND OTHERS (1991). Br;rain in 2010. London. Policy Studies Institute.
in
text processing by the mid to late 1990s.
There is not enough room to present the arguments around these predictions in a review - you must read the chapter. The editor can be forgiven all of his infelicities of language for finding a pair of authors like Tennant and Heilmeir for this chapter. Section 3, Knowing wkat is known, reviews the history and future of the document - a piece, appropriately, by the Vice President, Strategy Office, Xerox Corporation, well worth reading and giving to students to put the electronic document in context; optical storage; and the potential of imaging systems. I did not find the last two particularly interesting but that is
J.M Kerr. The IRM imperative: Strutegies for managing information resources. New York: Wiley, 1991. ISBN 0 471 52434 4. f32.15. The title, of course, is a give-away: The IRM imperative can only signal that this is a book produced by someone from the computer field, rather than from the information science field, or from what most of the contributors to and readers of IJIM will regard as information management. The language of the Preface is that of the gung-ho, American, corporate fast streamer - intended to motivate, but more likely to make us laugh at the pretensions:
315
Book reviews The IRM imperative presents a vision of the future that includes
automation
IS speciality shops, and other enhancements
that will make significant
dif-
ferences
in the future scrvices that systems departments provide. Note that it is ‘systems departments‘ that will provide these things, rather than information services departments or information management units. It is curious that computer services departments (which, increasingly, call themselves systems departments, or information systems departments) often provide little in the way of information services; they provide facilities or. at least, access to facilities and they do develop information systems. but the idea of information services that actually deliver infornzution to the user seems to be remote from the consciousness of their leaders. This is a gap which is mirrored on the other side of the fence (the fence dividing information services people from computer people) by the focus upon information and matters such as information retrieval, at the expense of all the other information services that ought to be thought of as deliverable, such as executive information systems, and decision support systems, which are left in the hands of computer services departments. I have remarked elsewhere. in reviewing books from both sides of the fence that, until the two come together, real integration of information services is unlikely to come about. However, that said, what about The IRA4 irnpemtivr? The aim is clear: it is to make computer centre managers more aware of the potential the technology offers for making a significant contribution to organizational performance. To this end. the book covers current developments in computer technology in a brisk fashion, from executive information systems to CASE technology and from objectoriented programming to electronic data interchange. The chapters are illustrated with mini-case studies, diagrams, and charts in a way that makes assimilation of the material easy. Each
316
centre
1. Kerr’s
distinction
and a management
between
the responsibilities
information
of an information
centre
factor-
ies, application globalization, organizational
Table
Information centre responsibilities Select and acquire PC technology Demonstrate PC software Train users in software packages Maintain end-use computing inventory Install PC technology and packages Support install-base
chapter has a summary, a list of key points, and references, and there is a combined bibliography and an index. In short, it is a well-planned and wellexecuted product. There are, of course, omissions: ‘expert systems’ is not an index term and ‘artificial intelligence’ has two brief mentions in the text in sections on possible future developments. Given that Kerr is at The Equitable, a US insurance company, this is rather surprising, because the financial services sector of business is one in which expert systems are said to have had an impact. Even more surprisingly, ‘telecommunications’ and ‘networks/ networking’ are not index terms, in spite of the fact that a whole chapter is devoted to electronic data interchange, nor is there any mention of integrated services digital network as a development, although it does appear in the glossary. Thus, the focus of the book is very much on the development of management-related applications for the organization of in-house information and in-house computer facilities. There is no treatment of information retrieval issues, or of the role of online information services in providing access to information of relevance to managers and, in fact, the whole area of inj-ormation resources as distinct from computer system facilities, gets short shrift. One table is very instruc-
Management information responsibilities
centre
Investigate user requirements Recommend system solutions Design end-user computing applications Leverage end-user computing information and technology Integrate existing end-user applications Assume traditional information centre responsibilities
tive as to the book’s bias; Figure 5.1 is intended to show the difference between the functions of an ‘information centre’ in the IBM sense, and a ‘management information centre’ (see Table 1). You will notice that, follolving the investigation of user reyulrements, you are supposed to recommend ‘system solutions’ - there is no indication that the requirements may be for information resources that do not require a ‘system solution’. I am also surprised that the book is targetted at computer system managers - the whole shape and format is that of an undergraduate textbook and I can’t imagine that there are many computer people who need to be told, for example, what the letters CDROM mean. The book may act as a refresher for such people, but in any event, the treatment of subjects is not deep enough for anything more: for object-oriented programexample, ming is dealt with in 18 pages and, if I can understand it all, as a nonprogrammer, it must be pretty basic. In brief, a useful text which provides a relatively up-to-date survey of current developments in systems development work, but with some surprising omissions and with a very basic level of treatment.
T. D. Wilson University of Sheffield, UK
2001, more or less as they did in, say, the 1970s. It is debatable, to say the least, whether that is true even for 1991: motherhood and apple pie may not yet have been replaced totally by cohabiting partnership and pommes frites, but American business wins no friends by conducting spurious patent claims against small UK companies to gain the right to exploit other people’s inventions. Dr Leebaert’s rosy-tinted view of US beneficence needs to be countered by a more realistic assessment of the future international economy. The rest of the book is divided into four sections, each of three chapters, except for the last, which has an unnumbered, 13th chapter on ‘Public policy for the inform~~tion age.’ The four sections have titles which don’t always seem to mean anything in relation to the content: The rising seu; Weultk and mastery; Knowing what is known; and inf~rmuti#n and tke htc~zun ruuce. One suspects the editor must have chosen them. The rising seu covers progress in computer technology, supercomputing, and a prediction of the microprocessor in 2001. Collectively they add little to what you might have picked up from reading Computer Weekly and PC Week regularly and, as the author of 2001: u microprocessor odyssey admits, it is easier to predict on the basis of trends in the technology than it is to figure out what applications the technology will be used for, and the authors have little guidance to offer. There is a poverty of imagination in this respect and one suspects that we shall still be using the machines to do more or less the same things as at present, but faster, with more user-friendly graphical interfaces, and with some, but not a lot. of integration of text with voice, image, etc., together with a lot of networking for relatively mundane purposes. ~effl~~l rind in~~~ter~ covers the future of networking in a rather dull piece which contains such gems as, ‘Networking . is necessarily a joint endeavour’ and ‘Networking in the 21st century will be quite complex, yet it will appear very simple’; the future of online technology in a more solid chapter that underpins its forecasts
with sound technological analysis; and an excellent first chapter, “Knowledge on the future of and equality’, knowledge-based systems. The authors are restrained and realistic in their assessments of the future possibilities of knowledge-based systems and their predictions across a wide range of ideas make interesting reading: Expect a radical microelectronics
change in the
in late
1990s.
That is, as a result of the development of alternatives to transistor-based microelectronics: Expect
ease
reemcrgc
as a
computing
of
use
to
major issue in
in the early to mid
I99Os. By the mid 1YYOs. people can be expected
sources rather
as
knowledge 'MAWYN,
Expect vertical-market knowledge bases to he built to scrvc as a platform for other products by the late 19% or sooner. Expect lormal knowledge to he published in executable not just in texthooks,
in the mid to late 1090s.
Of special interest to the information science community: Expect
T. D. Wilson UK
of Sheffield,
than as know-
Icdgc processors.
form,
University
to view personal
computers
reviews
probably the result of my own particular bias, rather than any shortcoming in the authors’ presentations. The final section, Information und the human race, includes one chapter that might have been better placed in the first section: ‘In a very short time: what is coming next in telecommunications’, and two more appropriately located pieces. The first, on ‘technology and the awakening of human understanding’ deals largely with teaching and learning, strongly influenced by the ideas of Seymour Papert. while the second deals with the ‘human interface’ and the possible developments of voice input/output. object-oriented programming, display improvements, data gloves, and much more.
a hrcakthrough
J., VICtiEKS,
P. AND
FEENEY,
M.
(1991). ~~~#~?~u~j~~z UK ZQUO. London: Bowker-Sam-. ZCt.~~~~~~~~C~, 11. (1989). Informurion 2000: Insights into the coming decades in information technology. London: Pitman. ‘Cookham Group (198X). Headlines 2000: The world ns we see it. London: Hay Management Consultants. .'MOK.I.ON, M.S.S. (1991). The corpor&m of the 1990s: Information technology und organizational transformation. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. hN~~RTHCOTT, J. AND OTHERS (1991). Br;rain in 2010. London. Policy Studies Institute.
in
text processing by the mid to late 1990s.
There is not enough room to present the arguments around these predictions in a review - you must read the chapter. The editor can be forgiven all of his infelicities of language for finding a pair of authors like Tennant and Heilmeir for this chapter. Section 3, Knowing wkat is known, reviews the history and future of the document - a piece, appropriately, by the Vice President, Strategy Office, Xerox Corporation, well worth reading and giving to students to put the electronic document in context; optical storage; and the potential of imaging systems. I did not find the last two particularly interesting but that is
J.M Kerr. The IRM imperative: Strutegies for managing information resources. New York: Wiley, 1991. ISBN 0 471 52434 4. f32.15. The title, of course, is a give-away: The IRM imperative can only signal that this is a book produced by someone from the computer field, rather than from the information science field, or from what most of the contributors to and readers of IJIM will regard as information management. The language of the Preface is that of the gung-ho, American, corporate fast streamer - intended to motivate, but more likely to make us laugh at the pretensions:
315
Book reviews The IRM imperative presents a vision of the future that includes
automation
IS speciality shops, and other enhancements
that will make significant
dif-
ferences
in the future scrvices that systems departments provide. Note that it is ‘systems departments‘ that will provide these things, rather than information services departments or information management units. It is curious that computer services departments (which, increasingly, call themselves systems departments, or information systems departments) often provide little in the way of information services; they provide facilities or. at least, access to facilities and they do develop information systems. but the idea of information services that actually deliver infornzution to the user seems to be remote from the consciousness of their leaders. This is a gap which is mirrored on the other side of the fence (the fence dividing information services people from computer people) by the focus upon information and matters such as information retrieval, at the expense of all the other information services that ought to be thought of as deliverable, such as executive information systems, and decision support systems, which are left in the hands of computer services departments. I have remarked elsewhere. in reviewing books from both sides of the fence that, until the two come together, real integration of information services is unlikely to come about. However, that said, what about The IRA4 irnpemtivr? The aim is clear: it is to make computer centre managers more aware of the potential the technology offers for making a significant contribution to organizational performance. To this end. the book covers current developments in computer technology in a brisk fashion, from executive information systems to CASE technology and from objectoriented programming to electronic data interchange. The chapters are illustrated with mini-case studies, diagrams, and charts in a way that makes assimilation of the material easy. Each
316
centre
1. Kerr’s
distinction
and a management
between
the responsibilities
information
of an information
centre
factor-
ies, application globalization, organizational
Table
Information centre responsibilities Select and acquire PC technology Demonstrate PC software Train users in software packages Maintain end-use computing inventory Install PC technology and packages Support install-base
chapter has a summary, a list of key points, and references, and there is a combined bibliography and an index. In short, it is a well-planned and wellexecuted product. There are, of course, omissions: ‘expert systems’ is not an index term and ‘artificial intelligence’ has two brief mentions in the text in sections on possible future developments. Given that Kerr is at The Equitable, a US insurance company, this is rather surprising, because the financial services sector of business is one in which expert systems are said to have had an impact. Even more surprisingly, ‘telecommunications’ and ‘networks/ networking’ are not index terms, in spite of the fact that a whole chapter is devoted to electronic data interchange, nor is there any mention of integrated services digital network as a development, although it does appear in the glossary. Thus, the focus of the book is very much on the development of management-related applications for the organization of in-house information and in-house computer facilities. There is no treatment of information retrieval issues, or of the role of online information services in providing access to information of relevance to managers and, in fact, the whole area of inj-ormation resources as distinct from computer system facilities, gets short shrift. One table is very instruc-
Management information responsibilities
centre
Investigate user requirements Recommend system solutions Design end-user computing applications Leverage end-user computing information and technology Integrate existing end-user applications Assume traditional information centre responsibilities
tive as to the book’s bias; Figure 5.1 is intended to show the difference between the functions of an ‘information centre’ in the IBM sense, and a ‘management information centre’ (see Table 1). You will notice that, follolving the investigation of user reyulrements, you are supposed to recommend ‘system solutions’ - there is no indication that the requirements may be for information resources that do not require a ‘system solution’. I am also surprised that the book is targetted at computer system managers - the whole shape and format is that of an undergraduate textbook and I can’t imagine that there are many computer people who need to be told, for example, what the letters CDROM mean. The book may act as a refresher for such people, but in any event, the treatment of subjects is not deep enough for anything more: for object-oriented programexample, ming is dealt with in 18 pages and, if I can understand it all, as a nonprogrammer, it must be pretty basic. In brief, a useful text which provides a relatively up-to-date survey of current developments in systems development work, but with some surprising omissions and with a very basic level of treatment.
T. D. Wilson University of Sheffield, UK