Infiltration Of Library In Information Industry

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Industries that produce or generate information goods are called the Information industries. In making decisions on behalf of clients, Information industries play important roles. This paper is an overview of the emerging technological challenges in the information industry. The authors trying to establish, how libraries and information centers can be accommodated in the chain of information industrial processes. Today the information industry (including publishers, vendors, libraries and universities) faces a similar struggle with new digital technologies, especially institutional and digital repositories. It also looks at potential solutions, or ways to generate, gather, group and disseminate the information goods. Various types of information industry, its roles, rules and supply chain that offer ideas for the success of the information industry as a whole. In an increasingly information-mediated world, the integration of research with business functions of information industry has been derived here.

Keywords: Information industry, Consumer, Business and Economics, Market, Production, Library, Communication Technology.

Introduction

The information industry is considered one of the most important economic sectors for a variety of reasons. There are many different kinds of information industries, and many different ways to classify them. Although there is no standard or distinctively better way of organizing those different views, the following section offers a review of what the term "information industry" might entail, and why; how the four Gs work in information industries; Alternative conceptualizations are that of knowledge industry and information-related occupation.

Libraries are part of the information industry. In the information industry, publishing changes technology innovations and many layers of automated ordering and accounting from large book jobbers to the small presses. Outsourcing is an important activity in many technical services. Officers’ skill in contract management is needed in changing scenario of libraries today. Preservation efforts as well as collection management strategies are changing with global electronic resource management and digitization activities. Metadata, Dublin Core, and other standards of information interchange forwarded by information professionals are important tools for the profession. Information managers are often at the center of the changing dynamics of the information industry as translated to their specific customer bases.

Varity of information industry

First, there are companies which produce and sell information in the form of goods or services. Media products such as television programs and movies, published books and periodicals would constitute probably among the most accepted part of what information goods can be. Some information is provided not as a tangible commodity but as a service. Consulting is among the least controversial of this kind. However, even for this category, disagreements can occur due to the vagueness of the term "information." For some, information is knowledge about a subject, something one can use to improve the performance of other activities—it does not include arts and entertainments. For others, information is something that is mentally processed and consumed, either to improve other activities (such as production) or for personal enjoyment; it would include artists and architects. For yet others, information may include anything that has to do with sensation, and therefore information industries may include even such things as restaurant, amusement parks, and prostitution to the extent that food, park ride, and sexual intercourse have to do with senses. In spite of the definitional problems, industries producing information goods and services are called information industries.

Second, there are information processing services. Some services, such as legal services, banking, insurance, computer programming, data processing, testing, and market research, require intensive and intellectual processing of information. Although those services do not necessarily provide information, they often offer expertise in making decisions on behalf of clients. These kinds of service industries can be regarded as an information-intensive part of various industries that is externalized and specialized.

Third, there are industries that are vital to the dissemination of the information goods mentioned above. For example, telephone, broadcasting and book retail industries do not produce much information, but their core business is to disseminate information others produced. These industries handle predominantly information and can be distinguished from wholesale or retail industries in general. It is just a coincidence, one can argue, that some of those industries are separately existing from the more obvious information-producing industries. For example, in the United States, as well as some other countries, broadcasting stations produce very limited amount of programs they broadcast. But this is not the only possible form of division of labor. If legal, economic, cultural, and historical circumstances were different, the broadcasters would have been the producers of their own programs. Therefore, in order to capture the information related activities of the economy, it might be a good idea to include this type of industry. These industries show how much of an economy is about information, as opposed to materials. It is useful to differentiate production of valuable information from processing that information in a sophisticated way, from the movement of information.

Fourth, there are manufacturers of information-processing devices that require research and sophisticated decision-making. These products are vital to information-processing activities of above mentioned industries. The products include computers of various levels and many other microelectronic devices, as well as software programs. Printing and copying machines, measurement and recording devices of various kinds, electronic or otherwise, are also in this category. The roles of these tools are to automate certain information-processing activities. The use of some of these tools may be very simple (as in the case of some printing), and the processing done by the tools may be very simple (as in copying and some calculations) rather than intellectual and sophisticated. In other words, the specialization of these industries in an economy is neither production of information nor sophisticated decision-making. Instead, this segment serves as an infrastructure for those activities, making production of information and decision-making services will be a lot less efficient. In addition, these industries tend to be "high-tech" or research intensive - trying to find more efficient ways to boost efficiency of information production and sophisticated decision-making. For example, the function of a standard calculator is quite simple and it is easy to how to use it. However, manufacturing a well-functioning standard calculator takes a lot of processes, far more than the task of calculation performed by the users.

Fifth, there are very research-intensive industries that do not serve as infrastructure to information-production or sophisticated decision-making. Pharmaceutical, food-processing, some apparel design, and some other "high-tech" industries belong to this type. These products are not exclusively for information production or sophisticated decision-making, although many are helpful. Some services, such as medical examination are in this category as well. One can say these industries involve a great deal of sophisticated decision-making, although that part is combined with manufacturing or "non-informational" activities.

Finally, there are industries that are not research intensive, but serve as infrastructure for information production and sophisticated decision-making. Manufacturing of office furniture would be a good example, although it sometimes involves research in ergonomics and development of new materials.

As stated above, this list of candidates for information industries is not a definitive way of organizing differences that researchers may pay attention to when they define the term. Among the difficulties is, for example, the position of advertising industry.

Significance of information industries

Information industries are considered important for several reasons. Even among the experts who think information industries are important, disagreements may exist regarding which reason to accept and which to reject.

First, information industries are a rapidly growing part of economy. The demand for information goods and services from consumers is increasing. In case of consumers, media including music and motion picture, personal computers, video game-related industries, are among the information industries. In case of businesses, information industries include computer programming, system design, so-called FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) industries, telecommunications, and others. When demand for these industries are growing nationally or internationally, that creates an opportunity for an urban, regional, or national economy to grow rapidly by specializing on these sectors.

Second, information industries are considered to boost innovation and productivity of other industries. An economy with a strong information industry might be a more competitive one than others, other factors being equal.

Third, some believe that the effect of the changing economic structure (or composition of industries within an economy) is related to the broader social change. As information becomes the central part of our economic activities we evolve into an "information society", with an increased role of mass media, digital technologies, and other mediated information in our daily life, leisure activities, social life, work, politics, education, art, and many other aspects of society.

Information centers: role in information industry

All businesses are information businesses in the sense that they use information to guide strategy and operations. So what is the role of information centers in industry? The information industry has its four "Gs." Libraries or information centers in this industry generate, gather, and group information, and then distribute (sell) information to other firms.

4.1 Information Generation

Libraries generate information by providing a theoretical base for research. Interpreting textual data from in-depth study from focus areas of study and writing research reports--these are creative, generative processes. It is their styles of information generation that often distinguish one library from another. Successful firms in the information industry are libraries, which focus on repackages and reengineer its special collection of information object.

4.2 Information acquisition

Central to the information industry is the process of gathering information. A research library gathers information focusing on their prime costumer of the organization, which builds their collection special. They also gather information from a variety of secondary sources. Traditional modes of gathering information include procurement of research report in a particular area.

4.3 Organize data to produce information

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the data, by the gigabits of information that come our way each business day. To learn from data, libraries organize, aggregate, and process those data. They use defined methods to transform, smooth, or reduce data. Library processing activities should yield a more manageable, more understandable and organization of the data. Libraries in an information industry processes information in meaningful ways.

4.4 Provide information to right consumers

The prime duty of a library is to provide right information to the right user at right time. Libraries are mostly involved in information searching, gathering, and distributing it to their customers. Libraries make and sell information to its clients, who buy and use information. Like successful information industry firms, library provides long-term value to their clients. A nonfiction writer or an anthropologist describing social trends that affect consumers, giving lectures and writing books, is just as much a part of the information industry as is the library that gathers scanned and download data from information supermarkets.

Information products can focus upon individual consumers, consumer segments, or markets. They can focus upon individual products, categories, or classes of products. At broad levels of aggregation, information products and services can deal with nationwide or worldwide markets and consumer cultures.

Information Industry: An Analysis

Library in information industry plays major role in analyzing or process data to make it useful information for its customers. The analyzed data have certain kind of focused customers. The user obtaining these data gets benefit out of it.

5.1 Suppliers

Libraries in Information industry plays major role as supplier of information products. Many skilled information workers gives their effort to make this role successful. The information workers are sensitive to changes in information technology imply changes in the information production function. They use Information and communications technologies (ICT) to generate, gather, and compile information. They work with customer databases and conduct online research. Accordingly, information systems suppliers are an important component of the information supply chain.

5.2 Consumer

Custom research addresses the needs of individual clients, and there are many clients. General-purpose research also serves the needs of many clients. There are times when information consumers and suppliers lock themselves into multi-year contracts, but it is more common for buyers and sellers to set up short term contracts on a project-by-project basis. Because there are so many potential buyers of business and economic information, individual buyers have limited bargaining power.

5.3 Possible barrier

Potential entrants into the information industry include technology and information systems manufacturers and consulting firms, accounting and financial services firms, and political, social, public opinion research firms and libraries and information centers. Advertising, media, and publishing firms can also supply research services. These types of firms have been around for many years, of course, and they have engaged in research of various kinds. Developments in information technology and online research have changed marketing research. Because there are few barriers to entry into the information industry, the industry is highly competitive.

5.4 Alternate information products

Just as trucks and highways substituted for railway cars and tracks in the transportation industry, the methods of online research substitute for traditional modes of research in the information industry. Online marketing research is research conducted over the Internet, including electronic mail surveys, web-browser-based surveys, distributed survey applications, online interviews, bulletin boards, and focus groups. Online research is more than just a new way to gather information, more than just a new modality of research. It represents a technological and cultural change. What we do as researchers and how we think about research are changing because of what we can do online.

Information industry principles

Some observers of the Internet, online shopping, and electronic commerce are fond of saying, "The rules have changed." Forget the hyperbole. It may be a new world of technology, but the rules of economics and business have not changed. Traditional research is time and paper intensive. The time to complete a traditional study, a cross-sectional survey of 1,000 consumers, for example, is measured in weeks or months. The time to complete an online study is often measured in hours or days, which can be easily done by the information centers. It is important to understand the structure of the information industry and changes in the information supply chain.

The Information business process

Client firms are at the far end of the information supply chain. Clients need business and consumer information to make decisions; they need information to run their businesses. How shall they get this information? They can make it or buy it. To make information, firms set up in-house research departments. To buy information, firms set up contracts with research providers, firms in the information industry like the information centers. In past years it may have been reasonable to characterize information supply chains as being limited to individual research provider and client firms. Just as many businesses are being transformed by the e-business revolution, as described by Amor (2000), marketing research is being transformed by online research. The automation of information generation, gathering, and grouping activities can lead to the development of a more complex information supply chain. As we move from providers of general-purpose tools and services to providers of more specialized services, there is value added through information integration and customization.

Conclusion

Our attempt to accommodate libraries and information centers in Information industry is to enhance its functionality with business and commercial exposure. Information centers can play a major role if the professional staff can step forward to work align with the marketing professional. The Information centers have the information products in the form of grey literature or research reports etc. The technologies and the technologist are existing in the information centers. The market place to sell or buy the information product is always in place. The requirement is the daring information managers, who can visit the market and find the long term contract for business in information industry. This will carry the information centers to new height. Information centers must take the confidence of its affiliated institutions before venturing into the information industry.