Digital Consumers

The information professions - librarianship, archives, publishing and, to some extent, journalism - have been rocked by the digital transition that has led to disintermediation, easy access and massive information choice. Professional skills are increasingly being performed without the necessary context, rationale and understanding. Information now forms a consumer commodity with many diverse information producers engaged in the market. It is generally the lack of recognition of this fact amongst the information professions that explains the difficulties they find themselves in.
There is a need for a new belief system that will help information professionals survive and engage in a ubiquitous information environment, where they are no longer the dominant players, nor, indeed, the suppliers of first choice. The purpose of this thought-provoking book is to provide that overarching vision, built on hard evidence rather than PowerPoint 'puff'.
The authors of the acclaimed CIBER Google Generation study, and an international, cross-sectoral team of contributors has assembled together for this purpose. Key strategic areas covered include:

• the digital consumer: an introduction and philosophy
• the digital information marketplace and its economics: the end of exclusivity
• the e-shopper: the growth of the informed purchaser
• the library in the digital age
• the psychology of the digital information consumer
• the information-seeking behaviour of the digital consumer: case study - the virtual scholar
• the Google generation: myths and realities about young people's digital information behaviour
• trends in digital information consumption and the future
• where do we go from here?

Readership: No information professional or student can afford not to read this far-reaching and important book.

Professor David Nicholas MPhil PhD is Director of the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London, where he is also Director of the UCL Centre for Publishing and a director of the CIBER research group. He is a member of the British Library Research Board and Editor of Aslib Proceedings. Dr Ian Rowlands BSc MSc PhD is Reader in Publishing at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College London, where he is also an active member of the UCL Centre for Publishing and of the CIBER research group. He recently led the Google Generation project for The British Library and JISC.