Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart Paperback – February 28, 2000

I work with the Web, while my husband is a Luddite who can barely manage an ATM card; this wonderful book speaks equally to both of us. Most of us assume that technology, whether we like it or not, is inevitable. Nardi and O'Day point out that this assumption is both unfortunate and preventable. We need to WAKE UP from our passive acceptance of the tide that overwhelms us with everything from cell-phones to cloning, and question WHY we use the technologies that have come to inhabit our everyday lives. We must also closely observe the technology-supported human encounters that we take for granted. For example, I use e-mail to serve the public; the e-mail makes my service much faster, but without thoughtful, compassionate, human-written responses, the swiftness of e-mail is pointless. By closely observing our habits with a questioning mind, we can then actively shape our use of technology, and even politely decline some of these fabulous new bells and whistles that do not serve us so well. In an information ecology, people engage in an interdependent manner with their local technology. The authors explain this concept at length, with plenty of historical references, and cite fascinating examples, such as invisible services performed by corporate librarians, and a virtual world within an elementary school that has jumpstarted reading, writing, and social skill levels for at-risk students. O'Day's and Nardi's careful writing makes this a breeze to read, even for those completely unfamiliar with technological terms. I finished this book with a new sense of power over my own environment, equipped with keener observation and the reminder to always ask "Why?"

I was fortunate enough to know Bonnie Nardi when I worked for AT&T. I read her book and enjoyed it. She is an anthropologist and this book explains how humans deal with technology. Might be a little advanced for some, but give it a try.

The book grabs the reader with an interesting title then immediately starts off with a look at a boring movie and then reviews of even more boring competing therories. Finally the authors reveal the information ecology therory. Unfortuanately, the don't offer much to back up their view and paint a picture of it being another feel good PC therory. Too bad since they have a valid point that will sadly be lost as another PC mistake...

I had to read this book for a college course, sorry to say. Otherwise, trust me, I wouldn't have gotten through this entire mess. The authors have about three common sense points to make and take about 100 pages to make each of those points. I'd like to know what qualifies them to write this book anyways. Bottom line is it's a complete waste of time!

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.