Legal Research

The Information ?Explosion?

By admin

Boy, remember that phrase – - “The Information Explosion”. It was big when I was a young adult. Very McLuhan. Of course, you need to remember this was BEFORE the advent of electronic information, the Internet or the web! I was reminded of the phrase when I saw this posting at Business Insider.

Content Is No Longer King: Curation Is King

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/content-is-no-longer-king-curation-is-king-2010-6?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29#ixzz0rdMl0nbS

So then I remember when all the pundits thought that all those webpages were an information “tsunami”. They hadn’t seen nuthin’ yet! Now, in June 2010, we’re really starting to see moreinformationthananyonecouldeverhandle.

So many webpages, videos, audiofiles, books, articles, phone calls, social media, and on and on and one. Wow!

Content can’t be king. It can’t focus and it’s too big to get organized in any sort of cohesive fashion. And it’s growing and growing and there’s more and more. Stuff can be old or new and still be valuable.

Therefore the curators shall inherit the earth! Those professions that can filter, organize, target, and make sense of the information maelstrom will do well – as long as they present their value in ways that people can appreciate, understand and trust. There are many sensemaking professions that should so well in the era of toomuchinformation – teachers, professors, sociologists, historians, archivists, publishers, writers, researchers, museum programmers, and more allied professions. Librarians help make sense of information as well as serving all of the sensemaking professions. We should do well.

W00t! Librarians rock.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on June 23, 2010 (boomark / email).