Information <em>in</em> the ecosystem: Against the “information ecosystem”

Authors

  • Timothy B. Norris University of Miami
  • Todd Suomela University of Alberta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v22i9.6847

Keywords:

Information Ecosystem, Ecology, Information Ecology, Libraries

Abstract

The “information ecosystem” metaphor is widely used in academic libraries and has become nearly ubiquitous when speaking of the information systems that support scholarly communication and varied forms of data sharing and publication. The trending use of this language arises from non-academic applications — for example in big data (the Hadoop ecosystem) or software development (the node.js ecosystem) — and there remains little critical examination of the use of this metaphor. Indeed, the definition of ecosystem as the set of relations between living organisms and their surrounding non-living environment is apparently not directly a part of the metaphor. This paper first describes the emergence of ecological thinking and how it was influenced by early information science and then explores how different “ecologies” are used within the academy, including in the emergent field of information ecology. A short critique of the metaphor is then posed and the paper concludes that the information ecosystem metaphor is useful, yet at the same time there are dangerous elements that render aspects of human societies and natural ecosystems invisible.

Author Biographies

Timothy B. Norris, University of Miami

Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation

University of Miami Libraries

Todd Suomela, University of Alberta

Postdoctoral Fellow in Data Curation

University of Alberta Libraries

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Published

2017-09-01

How to Cite

Norris, T. B., & Suomela, T. (2017). Information <em>in</em> the ecosystem: Against the “information ecosystem”. First Monday, 22(9). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v22i9.6847