The Future of Personal Information Management, Part 1. William Jones

can use the book both for a review of PIM basics and also to stimulate discussions concerning the future of our devices and the Web (Chapters 3 and 4).

      People in PIM research who can use the book as an update on PIM-related research and perspectives.

      People in related/contributing fields—including human-computer interaction (HCI), information retrieval (IR), library and information science (LIS), artificial intelligence (AI), database management, cognitive psychology and cognitive science – who can use the book as an efficient way to get up to speed on PIM.

      People in business who want to know “what they should know” about PIM especially as it relates to employee productivity and the criteria for the selection of supporting tools. The book can’t hope to be current with respect to supporting tools of PIM, but will provide guidelines for selecting PIM tools, techniques and policies.

      Interested laypeople who want to know more about the field of PIM and who also hope to improve their own practices of PIM.

      Some notes and caveats about this book:

      • References to scholarly articles of direct relevance to personal information management (PIM) are grouped together into a bibliography at the end of the book (Part I). Web references and references for non-PIM background reading are generally included directly in footnotes.

      • I include no references to information you can easily find on the Web. Instead of references, I sometimes include suggested search terms.

      • I am an unabashed citer of Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) articles when these are reasonably clear and objectively written. The interested reader should use these articles not as a final destination but as a springboard (through references cited) for further study of a given topic.

      • The book is not a step-by-step “how to.” It aims to help you in your efforts to figure things out for yourself.

      • The book is not a review of the latest and greatest in PIM tools and technologies. Such a book is out of date even as it is being written.

      • This book is no crystal ball. Instead, the book makes reasonable extrapolations from present trends into the future. Also, the book considers a “present perfect” of basic truths concerning our ways of processing information that have, are and likely always will, have relevance.

      William Jones

      March 2012

       Acknowledgments

      I thank Gary Marchionini for composing this lecture series.

      I thank Diane Cerra for her assistance in getting this book to press.

      I thank both Gary and Diane for their support and patience even as I repeatedly missed my (mostly self-imposed) deadlines.

      I thank Abe Wenning for earlier research.

      I thank my wife, Maria, for her comments on some portions of this book and for putting up with me as I struggled to complete this book.

      William Jones

      March 2012

      CHAPTER 1

       A New Age of Information

      Information. We are overloaded and overwhelmed by it and yet we can’t seem to get enough of it.

      But what is information? This question has been a repeated topic of discussion¹. Buckland, M. (1991), after an analysis of the many senses in which the word is used, concluded that “we are unable to say confidently of anything that it could not be information” (p. 256).

      Indeed, the efforts people make to understand their world are usefully characterized as acts of information processing². According to this view, our intelligence comes from our ability to process the raw data received through our senses into concepts, patterns, and implications. Everything “out there” that we are able to perceive is potential information.

      Whether sensory data actually yields information depends. The seminal work of Shannon³ introduced the notion that the information content of a message or event can be measured according to its impact on a recipient’s current state of knowing (their level of “uncertainty”). The message that “Harry is coming to the meeting” has no information value, for example, if its intended recipient knows this already or if the message is given to the recipient in a language she does not understand. In neither case does the message change what she knows already concerning who will be attending the meeting.

      But people don’t exchange information just to reduce uncertainty⁴. Information, as the data of human communication, has a sender as well as a recipient. The sender may send the data to reduce the recipient’s uncertainty (e.g., “It’s raining out there, better take an umbrella”). But the sender may have other or additional intentions. The sender may want to impress or persuade or ingratiate. The sender may want to increase the recipient’s uncertainty (“Have you considered these other possibilities …”). The sender may even want to confuse or deceive. Likewise, the recipient may have aims other than to simply be “informed” by incoming data. The recipient may, for example, misconstrue the data to confirm or conform to pre-existing expectations.

      In a survey of information science researchers described by Zins, C. (2007), information is often defined with reference to expressions of intention. For example, information is “the intentional composition of data by a sender with the goal of modifying the knowledge state of an interpreter or receiver” (p. 485). And information is “data arranged or interpreted … to provide meaning” (p. 486).

      A larger point in the work of Shannon endures: the value of information is not absolute but relative to a context that includes the intentions of the sender, the method of delivery, and the current state of a recipient’s knowledge. The information value of data is in the eyes (ears, nose …) of the beholder. What is information? We might better ask, what is information to us? Here are some answers.

      Information is what we extract from the data of our senses in order to understand our world.

      Information is what’s in the documents, email messages, web pages, MP3 files, photographs (digital and paper-based), videos, etc., that we send (or post) and that we receive (or retrieve).

      Information is for representing and referencing worlds distant from us in time or space. For example, information is how we learn about the ancient Egyptians. Information is how we learn of the current plight of people in a remote disaster area. Information is how we learn about the possibility of getting lung cancer in 20 years if we don’t stop smoking.

      Information is how we are represented to the outside world, accurately or not, for better or worse.

      Information is a drain on our money, energy, attention and time.

      Information is how we get things done.

      Information is an extension of us.

      Information is our challenge and our opportunity. We are bewildered, misled and seduced by information. But there is little we can do in our modern world that doesn’t involve an exchange of information. Information, well managed, gives us a range and reach that far exceeds the limits of our physical selves. We can “see” to the ends of the earth and beyond. We can effect changes large and small: Provide a credit card number to reserve a hotel room; transfer ideas to transform lives.

      Information is power.

      What then is personal information? What makes it mine (or yours)? Look for the “me” in “mine.” Information can be personal because it is “owned by me” (e.g., the information on our computer or on a flash drive), “about me” (e.g., medical records), “directed towards me” (think advertisements