Surviving the Web Overload
The Strategies for Librarians
Dr. H K Kaul
Director, DELNET
Developing Library Network
2015
Information Growth
• Twitter
Jan 2009
2 million tweets
June 2010
65 million tweets
June 2011
200 million tweets
May 2015
500 million tweets sent per day by 302 million
monthly active users.
• Information Growth
Deluge in the information growth.
 Internet traffic has risen by 13,000% in last decade
 2010, the quantity of information transmitted globally exceeded 1
zettabyte. Digital information is doubling every 2 years
• Internet users - 1995 to 2015 (May)
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Date
1995
2000
2014
2015 (May)
Internet Users
44838900
413425190
2925249355
3123558790
Theoretical Model
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The theoretical model of information overload - The following parameters:
Quantity of information
Characteristics of information
Quality of information
Information processing capacity
Available time
Task and the process parameters
Personal factors.
• The Overload Agents
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A survey was conducted by Benselin and Ragsdell: among 45 persons:
Frequency
Number of Respondents
45
Email
40
The Internet - Search Engines
36
Friends and family
36
Colleagues
29
T. V. news channels
27
Facebook
25
Smartphone apps
23
The Overload Agents(contd.)
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The Internet -News websites
Newspapers (Online)
The Internet - Corporate Websites
Newspapers (hard copy)
The Internet – Blogs
The Internet – Forums
Twitter
23
16
16
16
12
12
11
The Overload Agents(contd.)
The Internet - Online shopping
• Magazines
• Other (Please specify)
• RSS feeds
• Other social media
• None of the above
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11
8
7
5
3
0
Handling of the Information Overload Agents
The simple principles to follow:
General Issues: E-mails
• Use umbra and penumbra principle all the time
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Prioritise E-mail tasks
Genuineness of the Email
Forwarding
Sleep on It.
Handling of the Information Overload Agents (Contd.)
General Issues: Working in Office
For LIS professionals working in office during the day. Chris Pirillo offers the
following five basic tips:
• Make Time to Unplug
• Limit the Amount of Things You Can Focus On at One Time
• Utilise Otherwise Wasted Time Differently
• Plan Ahead
• Try Not to Take On Too Much
Collection Development (Print and Non-Print)
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The collections have to be relevant to the research and
reference needs of users.
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The weeding out of publications/ collections
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Regular exchange of ideas with specialists, students
and teachers.
Online Collections
• Multiple sources including open access
• Selection on the basis of the form such as manuscripts, books,
articles, journals, newspapers, photographs, etc
• On the basis of the subject such as Art, History, Physics, etc.
• On the basis of collections such as Children’s Collection,
• Heritage Collection, etc.
• Combination of one or more characteristics.
• Archived Collections
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How to archive
How to access archived collection
How to update the archived collections
Online storage for digitised collections
Use of software like DSpace, Greenstone, EPrints, Fedora,
Invenio, Opus et al.
• Resource Sharing
Information Search and Retrieval
• Availability of discovery tools; ICT facilities
• The education of users in search strategies
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The use of Truncations; Wildcards searches, etc.
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Subject headings - LOC 300 subject heading lists and thesauri
• How to extract information from archives, business, historical and religious
archives; mining of data from various specialised sources, etc.
• Searching in social media (e.g. twitter and facebook) and other Web
resources.
• Interactive IR systems etc.
• Library Websites
Transparency in the functioning in a library makes the atmosphere more
trustworthy and dependable. Besides proper guides, rules and reference
counters, the library website can greatly reduce the overload.
• University of Chicago Library
• New York Public Library
• Information Guides (How-to Guides)
Research institutions have started introducing guides for the users,
who benefit from this support. The following examples in this regard
are for students in the field of Journalism at the University of Iowa.
• Boolean Searching on the Internet
• Lexis/Nexis Tutorial from John Hopkins University
• Researching Companies Online. A tutorial
• Information Guides (How-to Guides)
• Web Search Strategies : A tutorial by Debbie Flanagan
• Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources by Esther Grassian,
UCLA College Library
• Evaluating Quality on the Net by Hope N. Tillman, Director of Libraries,
Babson College, Babson Park, Massachussets
• How to Critically Analyze Information Sources - Cornell University Library
Ranking by Citations
Quality of content could be ranked by the number of citations it has
attracted. Expert Citation Survey 2015 posted March 12, 2015 by Myles
Anderson and filed under Citations, Research, gives the following results:
• “71% say quality of citations is more important than quantity”
• 55% say accurate citations are ‘critical’ to local search ranking (vs. 68% in 2013)
• 45% say accurate citations are ‘very important’ to local search ranking (vs. 18% in
2013)
Librarians need to maintain a directory of citations on the subjects of interest
to them. The following citation management programmes are used at
Cornell University Library:
• Zotero; Mendeley; EndNote; RefWorks
• Quality Filtering
Information filtering includes the application of additional techniques that
are incorporated in information retrieval. It is important to find:
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In what context a particular subject is being discussed. This issue of
contextualisation requires encyclopaedic knowledge, culture and
judgment.
Evaluating the Web Content: The strategies
The University of Michigan Library has adopted the following guidelines:
 Evaluate the Intention of the Web site
 WHY was the Web site created?
 What purpose does the site serve? Information, entertainment, profit?
 What does the author get out of it? A laugh, a job, joy?
 What does the purpose tell you about the reliability of the information?
 What OPINION does this site represent?
 What point is emphasized by the web site? Is it reasonable?
 Is the tone reasonably objective or fanatical?
 What is conspicuously missing (if anything)? Do you see
 Logical errors or issues that have been avoided for no apparent reason?
Evaluating the Web Content(contd.)
Evaluate the Relevance of the Site
 How old is the web site or page?
 Can you tell when the page was posted to the web?
 Have the authors ever changed the content?
 Does it matter?
 Does timeliness matter to the subject of your paper or
project?
Evaluating the Web Content(contd.)
• Evaluate the Reliability of the Site WHO created the site?
• Can you tell? Does anyone claim authorship?
• Who do the authors work for? What are their credentials?
• Have you ever heard of them? Name recognition is important.
• Current Awareness Service (CAS)
Cornell University Library offers Current Awareness Service under the
following heads:
• New Books at Cornell; Table of Contents Alerts; Blogs; RSS Feeds; Facebook
& Twitter
• Social Bookmarking; Citation Alerts and Other Alerts
The University of Sheffield Library offers a range of CA services through the
Library Web and includes databases, such as ZETOC, electronic journals
platforms of publishers and aggregators and include:
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ZETOC via MIMAS
JournalTOCS
TechJournalContents
• Federated Searches
Federated searches take into account the quality of records searched
mostly from the vetted sources. In a single unified search in real time
important sources are grouped fast and presented to the searcher.
Also, using filters the results can be further narrowed down. The
Deep Web Technologies offers Alerts, Personal Library, Clusters and
Facets, Search Widgets etc.
• Packaging of Information
• User Strategies
User strategies could be divided into the following two sections:
• The strategies users themselves adopt.
• The strategies library professionals should adopt for them.
The strategies users adopt according to Blummer and Kent:
• They limit the acquisition of information
• Out of the limited available resources they use the first few items only
• They categorise information into chunks of information for further use.
• User Strategies(contd.)
• LIS professionals roles:
Bawden and Robinson suggest LIS professionals to adopt:
• Time management
• Desk management
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Critical thinking
Better information organisation
Expanding access to scientific and e-journals
Develop new skills and services among users including:
• Developing new skills and services
• Roaming reference service
• Evaluating search results with users.
• Information Literacy
Changing nature and non-permanence of information can create issues of
• Overload and addiction in the future.
• More use of Web 2.0 technologies is essential.
• People may be affected by lower levels of information literacy which
results in overloaded. Increasing of information literacy is essential
Role of Library Professionals
 The Subject Expertise
 Technical Knowledge
 Multidisciplinary Approaches
 Leadership
 Management Techniques
 Customer Targeting
 Encourage Group Discovery
The Knowledge Centre Characteristics:
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To Impart Appropriate Knowledge to Every User
Collaboration with Knowledge Experts
Use of Computer and Communication Technologies
Local Knowledge Resources
National Knowledge Resources
International Knowledge Resources
Culling Out Knowledge from Current and Old Resources
Users’ Surveys
Matching Resources with Users Needs
How to Convert a Library into a Knowledge Centre
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Bring Users and Experts Together
Provide Access to National and Global Resources
Develop Knowledge Repositories
Manage Content in Full-text Form
Arrange Cataloguing and Indexing of Resources using
International Standards
• Capture Knowledge
• Give Links to Useful Sites
• Make the Knowledge Centre as a ‘One-stop Centre’