Equilibrium & Opportunism:information strategies and the

new environment

eLib ConferenceYork, 2-4 December 1998James Michalko, Research Libraries Group

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OVERVIEW

• Caveats– OUR PLACE, IGNORANCE & METAPHOR

• Ecology as a metaphoric device

• Population, community and symbiosis

• Ecological succession

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OUR PLACE, IGNORANCE & METAPHOR

• Rarefied air

• Deep ignorance

• Dim understanding

• Metaphors and analogies

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How Rarified?6 Billion World Population

119.5 million Online Worldwide

70 million Online North America

23 million Online Europe

17.25 million Online Asia/Pacific

7 million Online South America

1 million Online Africa

.75 million Online

Middle East

ONLINEWorldwide Worldwide 2% 2%

Total Population

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1.1

3.8

1.1

6

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

World Population in Billions

Worldwide Annual Income per Family Member

GREATERTHAN $7500MIDDLEINCOMELESS THAN$700Total WorldPopulation

U.S. Consumer spending per person was about $482 in 1998 for Communications and Entertainment

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OUR PLACE, IGNORANCE & METAPHOR

• Rarefied air

• Deep ignorance

• Dim understanding

• Metaphors and analogies

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Ecology as a Metaphoric Device

• Grounding our metaphors

• Baseline concepts

• eLib as context• Ecology: Study of the relationship

between living things (within species and between different species) and between them and their environment

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Biosphere

Biome

Ecosystem

Community

Population

Individual

Ecology - Relationships

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Food Webs???

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Food Webs???

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Biosphere

Biome

ECOSYSTEM

COMMUNITY

POPULATION

Individual

Ecology - Relationships

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Population -- Limits & Capacities

• Equilibrium• Rapid reproduction, short life span

• Opportunism• Slow reproduction, long life span

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Community and Symbiosis

• Symbiosis

• Parasites and predators

• Beneficial mutualism

• Competitive exclusion

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Ecological Succession• Transformations of communities• Successive species• Diversity of species• Climax vegetation

• Matter increases• More niches to be exploited• Production rate slows

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"Towards the Hybrid Library"

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Equilibrium and Opportunism

• Population strategies and implications for eLib, The Library, the Information Economy

• Relationship to the Hybrid Library

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Symbiosis

• Change in principal relationships

• Collaboration and mutualism

• Peace between sectors

• Adaptation to new expectations

• Exploitation of unique assets

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Ecological Succession

• Stability vs. catastrophe

• Climactic ecosystems

• New species

• Environment of continual change

• Mass extinction or adaptation?

• The next metaphor...

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Consilience

A jumping together of knowledge as aresult of the linking of facts and fact-basedtheory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.

Edward O. Wilson

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