Full Description
"Big data," as it has become known in business and information technology circles, has the potential to improve our knowledge about human behavior, and to help us gain insight into the ways in which we organize ourselves, our cultures, and our external and internal lives. Libraries stand at the center of the information world, both facilitating and contributing to this flood as well as helping to shape and channel it to specific purposes. But all technologies come with a price. Where the tool can serve a purpose, it can also change the user's behavior to fit the purposes of the tool. Big Data Shocks: An Introduction to Big Data for Librarians and Information Professionals examines the roots of big data, the current climate and rising stars in this world. The book explores the issues raised by big data and discusses theoretical as well as practical approaches to managing information whose scope exists beyond the human scale.
What's at stake ultimately is the privacy of the people who support and use our libraries and the temptation for us to examine their behaviors. Such tension lies deep in the heart of our great library institutions. This book addresses these issues and many of the questions that arise from them, including:
What is our role as librarians within this new era of big data? What are the impacts of new powerful technologies that track and analyze our behavior? Do data aggregators know more about us and our patrons than we do? How can librarians ethically balance the need to demonstrate learning and knowledge creation and privacy? Do we become less private merely because we use a tool or is it because the tool has changed us? What's in store for us with the internet of things combining with data mining techniques?All of these questions and more are explored in this book
Contents
Part I: First Shocks
Chapter 1: Defining Data
Chapter 2: The Rise of Big Data
Chapter 3: The Tools and Applications of Big Data
Part II: Reality Shocks
Chapter 4: Big Data and the Issue of Privacy
Chapter 5: Corporate Overreach in the Era of Big Data
Chapter 6: Political Spying in the Era of Big Data
Chapter 7: Information Overload and Big Data
Part III: Library Shocks
Chapter 8: Big Data, Libraries, and Collection Development
Chapter 9: Data Management Planning Strategies for Libraries in the Age of Big Data
Chapter 10: Academic Disciplines, their Data Needs, and How Libraries Can Cater to Them
Part IV: Future Shocks
Chapter 11: Libraries and the Culture of "Big Assessment"
Chapter 12: Building the "Smart Library" of the Future
