Why we need librarians and information scientists

“I have watched as hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested to re-invent the wheel – often badly. Everybody understands and takes for granted that there is an expertise needed for the application and use of technology. Unfortunately, many Web entrepreneurs fail to recognize that there is a parallel expertise needed about information – collecting it, organizing it, embedding it successfully in information systems, presenting it intelligently in interfaces, and providing search capabilities that effectively exploit the statistical characteristics of information and human information seeking behavior.

“Content” has been treated like a kind of soup that “content providers” scoop out of pots and dump wholesale into information systems. But it does not work that way. Good information retrieval design requires just as much expertise about information and systems of information organization as it does about the technical aspects of systems….”. [more].