Transfer student library introduction

Information environments

What is wrong with the man in this picture? 

The answer in this context is that he was not prepared for the environment that he is in.  He was not prepared for the conditions, and it cost him his life. (Well, the character's life...the actor is Jack Nicholson, and he is still alive and still a Lakers season ticket holder).

This point here is that each situation we find ourselves in is a different information environment.  Like physical environments, we interact with different information environments in different ways.  For example, in colder environments, we tend to dress differently than we might normally dress to project ourselves. Additionally, like physical environments, we operate in a number of different information environments.  Our families constitute an information environment, as do our places of work, our friend groups, our hobbies or interest groups, etc.

In different information environments, there are different expectations for how we interact with information both as consumers (receivers of information) and creators or sharers.  A simple way to demonstrate this is to ask the question: Could we drop the F-bomb in a job interview?  Chances are, probably not.  If we were to do something like that, potential employers could read that as an indication that we do not have a sense of propriety or professionalism and offer the job to someone else.  Harsh language could tarnish the company's image or even be against company policy.  Of course, there may be exceptions, but we have to be extremely sensitive to signals we get from the environment.  But we may use that kind of language with our friends.  So, what is the difference?

The difference lies in the fact that interactions with a potential employer and interactions with friends are two different information environments that have different expectations about how we communicate.  Those expectations may be a lot looser with friends than in more "professional" information environments.  Learning to understand different environments is a key skill.  College-level research requires us to communicate in more formal ways, use discipline-specific conventions, use citations, rely primarily on scholarly sources, etc.  In "everyday" situations, this is not the case; we can rely on "popular" information (see types of information below).  We can use popular information sources to a limited extent, but we need to learn how to use them in conjunction with more analytical information sources.