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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A great concept with weak follow through, November 4, 1999
I really wanted Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart by Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day to be a great book. Unfortunately it was only OK. As a librarian, with an undergraduate degree in Anthropology, I was intrigued that O'Day was described as a graduate student in anthropology and that the authors were using a library setting as one of their case studies. Finally, I thought, someone will definitively present to the world the value of what it is librarians DO and with anthropologically informed insight!The authors do a very good job of summarizing the various "framing conversations" and "metaphors" that have been used to talk about technology and as the basis for analyzing the impact of technological change. They cite many books that I have read and enjoyed as thought-provoking discussions of technology and its role in society (Being Digital, Silicon Snake Oil, The Gutenberg Elegies, Technopoly, Life on the Screen) and use them to bolster their arguments in ways that will probably encourage others to seek out those books and read them (in fact I am inspired to delve into "ancient history" and read some of the older, seminal works the authors cite). The writing style of the book is very clear and cordial but every time I felt I was being led through interesting discourse to a logical conclusion or culminating POINT I would exit a paragraph or chapter feeling somehow that there was no "there" there. Interesting questions were raised and a persuasive thesis was put forward concerning why the old ways of thinking about technology should be superceded by their metaphor of "information ecology". The authors note (pg. 70) that "It is common to leap ahead to 'how' questions when we think about technology. [...] It is less common - but crucially important - to ask a full range of "why questions as well [...]" But at the end of the first section I felt *all* I had was a framework of questions, and no discussion of how the answers define an information ecology. The authors "conclusion" (page 74) was apparently that the whole matter is a "complex business" and "change can become confusing and overwhelming" but "talk" and "experiments" and "local settings" are the answer. To which I heaved a sigh of "HUH?" and moved on to part 2 where I was promised that we would "look in detail at specific information ecologies ... [and] see examples that show diversity, coevolution, keystone species, and the application of values". OK! I was ready for some solid field work and logical analysis of the data to substantiate their new way of examining technology. What did I find? Redundant, boring, embarrassing and CONFUSING transcripts of interactions that definitely lost something in the translation. I have personal and extensive experience in environments similar to those described in chapters 7 (Librarians: a keystone species) and 9 (Cultivating Gardeners: the importance of homegrown expertise) and I couldn't tell how the material presented was supposed to illustrate their points! This is not to say that I didn't find much of the discussion interesting as a point of departure for thinking about those situations - but the transcripts of interviews were a distraction and waste of time. They should have been relegated to footnotes (or left out entirely). By the time I got to Chapter 10 and had to read interviews that were filled with "Yeah. And it's weird. I thought it was weird how you can get a picture into the computer" ... well, ya know it was, like, gag me with a spoon, ya know? The last chapter was primarily a rehash of dozens of articles praising the Internet "as a riveting global phenomenon with important implications for local information ecologies". They state that "Information ecologies are local habitations with recognizable participants and practices" but nothing in the previous 184 pages had demonstrated that to me! I felt as if Chapter 13 had been tacked on to fill the book out to a reasonable length. In spite of it all, I give the book 3 stars (I'd give it 2 1/2 if I could) because of the first section and the interesting observations that are scattered in the second section. The concluding paragraph on the last page quotes Annie Dillard - "we need to call our attention to what passes before our eyes". This book DOES do that - but I had hoped for so much more.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some effective arguments, some misguided, October 23, 1999
According to the authors of this book we shouldn't believe that we can solve every problem by simply throwing technology at it. Nor should we be Luddites, bury our heads in the sand, and ignore the value of technology. The authors take the "middle ground", and present the the position that we must be "critical friends" of technology, and be sure that we not blindly accept technology as a panacea and allow it to dominate our lives.I found some of their arguments against technological advances to be weak in some areas. For example, they discuss the moral ramifications of cloning, and whether or not we should allow cloning of human beings, or even investigate the possibility, "just because we can." They also quoted J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the hydrogen bomb, about his team's desire to move forward and build the bomb simply because they had proved in theory that it was possible. What to do with the bomb would be someone else's decision. I found the authors' arguments to be ineffective in that these situations represent extreme positions that most people could agree with. However, major advancements in science, medicine, mathematics and other fields have been achieved by individuals simply trying to "push the envelope." Indeed, the original hacker community was not a group of individuals trying to break into secure servers, they were programmers obsessed with perfection in programming techniques, trying to find the most efficient way to accomplish a task with the least amount of code. I wonder what side the authors would take in George Mallory's position of climbing Mt. Everest simply "because it's there." What would a "critical friend" of Mallory's say to him about his motivation? I was a bit disturbed by their portrayal of Nicholas Negroponte as a someone who blindly accepts and promotes technology and it's inevitable place in our future, with no consideration of the consequences. They chide him for the technology-driven Utopia he describes in his book "Being Digital", with its technology that lacks any sense of social meaning or integration into society. Their portrayal fell just short of comparing Negroponte to Victor Frankenstein. I felt their portrayal of Negroponte on one end of the scale and Cliff Stoll on the other was inaccurate. Though their opinions differ, they hardly represent the extreme ends of the spectrum. I suspect the authors' motivation for choosing these two individuals was their relative fame in the online community. The authors conducted a number of impressive case studies that dominate the second half of the book. I found these chapters to be much more enjoyable and informative than the earlier chapters that attempt to strengthen their arguments. Their selection of librarians as a "keystone species" in the information ecology was insightful. I found their arguments for this selection as effective, but it too fell short. Rather than focusing simply on the end user, they could have also argued for the use of skilled librarians on the server and design end of the equation. The huge need for librarian skills at the client end highlights the deficiencies at the server and design end of the net. I have never met an individual who believes that all of society's ills can be solved by throwing technology at it, as Nicholas Negroponte is portrayed in this book. If such a person does exist, this book was written for him or her, as it would be for a true Luddite. Unfortunately, I don't believe either would be swayed effectively by the authors' arguments.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A New Metaphor Explaining Technology and a Call to Action for Critical Literacies, April 20, 2009
Anyone who has ever seen Fritz Lang's movie Metropolis - even the version rocking the Pat Benatar/Adam Ant/Queen soundtrack - knows that as technology becomes evermore present, society will continue to fear the "inevitable" destruction of humanity at the cold, logical hands of our cyborg overlords (see: Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner). Even in our cinematic visions of a futuristic utopia, technology is still the oppressor of human goodness, like in THX-1138 or the even more horrifying Logan's Run (with my 30th birthday approaching, my fear of "the Carousel" is growing exponentially). It is within the cinematic view of technology - specifically, Metropolis - that authors Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O'Day introduce their book Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart. The authors lay out the plot of Metropolis to introduce a central concept linking humans with technology: a mediator. Here's a quick rundown of the plot:
Beautiful futuristic city is run on the blood, sweat, and tears of the worker class whose bodies are broken underground as cogs in the machine that allow the upper class to live lives of leisure and comfort. Then, a scientist builds a robot that looks like a lady and the Master of the city tells the scientist to make the robot look like Maria, a leader of the revolutionists underground. The goal of the Master is to incite violence so the workers can be killed off and replaced with robots. Robot Maria does the job and chaos ensues and things get totally out of hand as the workers destroy the machinery that runs the city above. As both worlds are now literally collapsing, the movie's protagonist - who is the son of the Master and who is also empathetic to the workers' plight and in love with the real Maria to boot - becomes the mediator between the two worlds. The Master's son stands between his father (the world of technology) and the foreman of the workers (the world of the people), and he holds his hands out to both men, bridging the worlds.
Nardi and O'Day set this scene to express their belief that we must also have a mediator between ourselves and technology, and this mediator is the heart. Information Ecologies has a clear twofold purpose. First, the book is a call to action regarding the ways in which we interact with technology. And second, the book argues that we have to rearticulate the way we define ourselves and our relationships with the devices we use. Before the authors go into any significant detail about their call to action - their claim about the human heart as mediator - they create a framework within which to view our interactions with technology, and this is where the idea of information ecologies comes into play. Nardi and O'Day break down the metaphors that we often use to explain how we process the idea of technology, such as "technology is a tool" or "technology is a text" or even "technology is a system." In their analysis, the authors deconstruct these commonly held metaphors as a preamble to the introduction of their own ecology metaphor. However, the authors don't just dismiss or disprove the commonplace metaphors we associate with technology; they simply point out both their flaws and merits. This allows the authors to demonstrate the need for a new, more complete representation of technology in our lives, it allows them to build on the ideas about technology we've become comfortable with, and it allows them to really stress the need for a metaphor when describing the complex connections we have with technology and information in our everyday lives.
From Chapter 3 on, Nardi and O'Day entrench their work in the belief that we are active participants in a complex and diverse ecosystem of information. The authors identify the five necessary components for their information ecology: system, diversity, coevolution, keystone species, and locality. This metaphor is both unique and apt, but it is not until the second half of the book, the case studies, that it is clear just what information ecologies are and how we fit into them. For me, the most salient case study was the authors' examination of librarians as a keystone species in the library ecosystem. Nardi and O'Day note that as libraries become more equipped with computers and digital technologies the librarian actually becomes a more important person to the system, despite the notion that technology will force the librarian into obsolescence. The librarian provides "information therapy...to help clients understand their own needs." The librarian provides "strategic expertise...technical skill and knowledge of where information lives and how it is organized." And, the librarian is an agent of "building relationships" and encouraging "repeat clients." According to the authors, librarians hold the library ecosystem together by facilitating both its human and technological elements. The library as an ecosystem is somewhat easy to imagine. It's a system because it is made up of different parts - books and other print, technology, and people who contribute "practices and values" - and all of these parts are interconnected. It has diversity in its people and tools. Its people and tools evolve with each other, if not by choice then by necessity. It has a keystone species in the librarian. And, it is defined by the people who participate in its existence; by the people who physically interact with the ecosystem. Understanding Nardi and O'Day's theory in an applied example helps to see all the information ecologies we participate in, from school to work to our interactions on the Internet - which the authors address in another case study.
After the introduction of the information ecology metaphor and before the case studies, the authors directly address the call to action they started the book off with; namely, that people and technology must be bridged with the heart. Chapter 6, "How to Evolve Information Ecologies," is nothing less than a call to arms for critical literacy, which is the heart and mediator for Nardi and O'Day. The authors ask their readers to "work from core values," to "pay attention," and to "ask strategic questions" - questions about power structures and cultural hegemonies. For Nardi and O'Day, critical literacy is essential in avoiding many either/or paradigms that they find inherent in our relationships with technology. The main example they give is the "technophilia/dystopia" dyad, and it is probably in this part of the book, Chapter 2, where the authors' argument is weakest. Nardi and O'Day explore two extreme relationships with technology; technophilia is examined through the work of Clifford Stoll, and the dystopic view is examined through Nicholas Negroponte's work. After analyzing these two extremes, the authors advocate the middle ground. I can recognize that the authors set up this framework to help explain their idea that critical literacy is essential to understanding technology beyond its extremes; however, their argument suffers in this section because they briefly ignore the complex psychologies behind the ways people interact with technology.
Ultimately, I liked Information Ecologies and I would recommend it as a book that is enjoyable for leisure reading and a book that also addresses scholarly concerns. However, my strongest recommendation for this book is to anyone who feels frustrated with technology or is experiencing a tech overload. This book offers a nice, calming perspective that assuages a lot of the confusions that come with interacting with technology as it continues to rapidly evolve and influence our lives.
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