Background Information

• A Brief History of Information
  • Information storage and transmittal
  • Growth over time

• Societal Value of Information: Information Pyramid
  • Data
  • Information
  • Knowledge
  • Wisdom

• Acquisition of Information: people, broadcast media, print, electronic media, world around us

• Format of Information: print, microformat, electronic, sound, visual

• Organization of Information
  • Primary and Secondary Sources: Examples

    architectual drawings computer files conference papers diaries dissertations & masters theses fictional books

    interviews letters of correspondence journal articles magazine articles news broadcasts newspaper articles

    non-fiction books personal journals photographs reviews technical reports

  • Scholarly and Popular Sources
    • Use by Scholars, Professionals, and the General Public
    • OWL 7 - Scholarly or Popular: What's the Difference & Why Do I Need to Know?
    • Journals - Scholarly or Popular?

• Information Cycle:
  • Generalized cycle: production, organization, retrieval, use
  • Scientific Research/Publication Cycle
  • Humanities Research/Publication Cycle

• Properties of Information
  • Commodity Value
  • Time Value: "half life" of information

Assignment

• Scholarly Journals and Popular Magazines