My Seven Pillars of Information Wisdom - Light Hearted Advice and Guidance for Information Professionals (Paperback, 1)

Dr Ryan has always been a maverick, challenging conventional wisdom when it did not match actual experience. Over the years he has developed a number of guiding principles, his pillars, which have stood the test of time and enabled him to steer a steady path through the often turbulent waters of his profession. In the Seven Pillars of Information Wisdom he is making his expertise and ideas visible to his fellow information professionals to adopt or reject as they see fit. The text is dotted with personal anecdotes to illustrate the stated principles making them easier to understand and assimilate. It is intended to be an easy, and hopefully enjoyable, read that may just change the way those involved think about their chosen profession in the wonderful and magical world of information. From a discussion of 'what is information' and 'what is knowledge' and how the division between the two became blurred the author goes on to argue that saving time is the primary reason why users repeatedly access information services and systems. He outlines his struggle to justify the existence of his information unit and the many strategies used to convince budget holders that a well managed corporate information unit is crucial to the continuing health and growth of an enterprise. Information is needed to address short term issues and to keep experts' expertise up-to-date. These are labelled as research and current awareness and the author goes on to trace the history of news databases and their crucial role in both research and keeping users up-to-date. The emphasis of budget holders and corporate planners, who rarely use commercial information services, is on cost. The emphasis of users is on value. A highly successful methodology for valuing information services based on their time-saving value is discussed, as is the role of information and knowledge in the making of personal and collegiate decisions. The mechanisms of Block Building, Salami Slicing and Pearl Growing for retrieving data from online databases are considered and the book concludes with a discussion of ways that corporate information units are funded and successful techniques of negotiating contracts.