The Impact of Information on Society; An Examination of its Nature, Value and Usage (2nd edition)

Michael Hill is well‐known as a doyen of the British information science community. Beginning, like so many of his contemporaries, as a chemist, he moved into library/information work at the establishment of a national reference library for science and technology, incorporating the London Patent Office library, and was later a member of the organising committee which established the British Library. He has been involved in many professional activities, and is, in short ideally suited to write a personal account of the information world, and his view of its most important concepts and issues.

Which is, in a nutshell, what this book is. The title is a little misleading, in that it suggests that this is an analysis of the “information society” concept, akin to that of Feather (2004), whereas this particular aspect only appears, at least explicitly and centrally, in the latter chapters of the book. It has more relation to Vickery and Vickery's (2004) seminal information science textbook, from the same publisher.

The initial chapters, on the nature and impact of knowledge and on the quality and reliability of information, set the tone for the rest of the book. Focusing on central concepts and issues, they are scholarly and well‐referenced, while at the same time illuminated by fund of anecdotes and personal asides. Hill sets outs his scientific take on these matters in the preface, declaring that “a fact, dry or otherwise, is the basic particle of information” and this rational and pragmatic approach permeates the whole book. The book is clearly and well written, in an informal, although serious, style.

The following chapters, on the comprehension and communication of information, continue with the presentation of general principles, illuminated by examples and anecdotes. The sixth chapter, entitled with typical modesty “Some aspects of information, knowledge and document management” acts as a bridge between the earlier conceptual material, and the approach to information society issues which follows it. Hill here strikes a nice balance between undue credulity and unfair cynicism in dealing some fashions in IM and KM.

The next three chapters deal with information ethics, divided by chapter into expectations and rights, duties and responsibilities, and intellectual property, privacy and data protection, respectively. The information society aspect of the book is introduced by a chapter dealing with “Some cultural and social issues” which arguably attempts to be so broad and all‐encompassing that it loses touch with the themes of the book: “most people take some of their holidays abroad, preferring Tenerife or Thailand to Margate or Morecambe” and so on. However, it may reasonably be said that many studies of “the information society” “the impact of IT” and so on, are too tightly focused, perhaps even missing the wood for the trees, and Hill's approach is a useful corrective.

The four chapters which follow cover the economics of information, and the changing role of information in environmental issues and in education, and in government and politics. The final chapter is entitled by two questions: “An information society? Is, where is it heading?”. This brief chapter is as structured as the bulk of the book is discursive, and summarises the issues nicely.

It should be noted that the book has indeed been genuinely fully revised from its first edition of 1999, at least by in the introduction of numerous topical anecdotes, although some of the “harder” data is limited to earlier years. To the parochial delight of a reviewer who not infrequently complains about the American bias of many information science books, this one has a clear stance, in terms of examples and anecdotes, in the United Kingdom.

Unfortunately, the publishers, in describing this book in the back‐jacket description as an “essential handbook” commit a misuse of language, if not an offence against the Trade Descriptions Act. A handbook, though it may take many forms, must have a strong structure, and an excellent index. This book, as we have seen, is discursive, and almost essay‐like, in its structure; it is primarily meant to be read, not referred to. And its index, sadly, is its weakest point, being limited to broad topics, and cited authors. I shall certainly want to use the book as a source of examples and quotations – as I suspect will others – but will have to page skimming to find them. The index is silent on Hill's mentions of the cricketer Donald Bradman, the broadcaster Alistair Cooke, the playwrite David Hare, the disgraced spin‐doctor Jo Moore, the seer Nostradamus, and the devotional writer Francis of Sales, and the English Queen Mary Tudor, to name a random sample. Similarly for concepts: Hill's views of the informational impact of the London Congestion Charge, peanut allergies, the Newfoundland cod fishery, and many others, must be found the hard way. Seldom does a book of this sort cry out for full‐text searching as much as this one.

Despite erring in describing it as a handbook, the publishers are right in claiming that this book is of interest to “all knowledge managers, librarians and information professionals”. It offers food for thought for any reflective practitioner, as well as being a useful sourcebook for students.