This is  a paper that I wrote in the Fall of 2008 for an Information Architecture and Knowledge Management graduate course at Kent State University.

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“The People cannot be safe without information.
When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe.”
–Thomas Jefferson

“Information is power,” goes the mantra among librarians and other knowledge-centered professionals. Those with the skills, resources and understanding necessary to access high-quality information are empowered in their decision-making. They get ahead in their personal and professional lives while those who lack these assets are at a significant disadvantage. The implication is that the shift to an information-based economy in recent decades has accentuated the gap between information haves and have-nots.

A good example of the impact of lack of access to information comes from the world of healthcare. As a 2004 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office describes, a number of research studies in recent years have shown that the United States’ “fragmented, disorganized and inaccessible clinical information adversely affects the quality of health care and compromises patient safety” (p. 6). Because of the financial, technical, cultural and legal barriers that limit development of solutions to the disconnect in healthcare information, lives are lost, money is wasted and quality of life for millions of people is reduced.

A key point to consider is what exactly keeps the information have-nots from obtaining the critical information that could potentially improve their lives. Transfer of information from producer to consumer is a process. The information has to first be created in a permanent form by an author, passed through some type of medium or interface and finally accessed by the consumer. Barriers impeding this transfer can emerge at any of these points.

Three major categories of information barriers will be explored here: (1) user-based, (2) interface-based and (3) social/systemic.

USER-BASED BARRIERS

Individual characteristics that might prevent someone from seeking or obtaining critical information are many and varied. Major types are: lack of education, language barriers, cultural norms, lack of resources, and information overload.

Education

Perhaps the most common and formidable barrier to accessing critical information, and thus leveraging its potential power, is simply lacking the understanding of information’s value and the knowledge of how to get it. The abundance of information now readily available on the Web has the potential to significantly improve someone’s decision-making and thus overall quality of life, but if they do not: (1) appreciate its worth, and (2) know where to look for it, then the benefit remains unrealized.

Those in the field of librarianship commonly refer to the concept of information literacy. The Association of College & Research Libraries (1989) states that, “to be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” Information literacy skills are vital in navigating through the huge volume of available information and distinguishing that which is current, reliable, authoritative and true from that which is dated, unreliable, and misleading.

Education regarding technology is also essential in order to access the electronic information that dominates modern communications. Tools including personal computers and multi-function mobile communications devices can initially be obstacles until the user learns to use them effectively.

Language

Language differences remain a major obstacle in information access. With the great majority of web content written in English (Figure 1), those without English-language skills are effectively unable to reap the benefits of most of the richness the internet has to offer (Sutton, 2004).

Figure 1: Top Ten Languages in the Internet

To illustrate the impact of language barrier on information access in a specific region, according to Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) more than 25% of internet users worldwide are from Asian countries, but less than 5% of the of total population in those countries are online. The primary causes of this disparity, replicated in other regions around the globe, are believed to be lack of resources and the language barrier (Sutton, 2004).

Several public and private sector organizations are working to create the lexicons, dictionaries and other aides that will help to improve translation and allow for more efficient content creation, but the challenges are both complex and expensive (Sutton).

Culture

In addition to lack of education regarding the value of critical information, some paths to high-quality information resources may depend on acceptability with a particular culture or subculture. Research demonstrates that for marketing efforts to succeed, the message and form must be attractive to the target audience (Korzenny, 2005).

An example from the medical industry illustrates this principle. A large city found that the healthcare needs of inner city African American residents were going largely unmet. In an effort to serve this community the city constructed a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art hospital in the heart of the one of the poorest downtown areas. Several months after the hospital opened it was still highly under-used, with residents choosing instead to continue seeking medical services at the relatively run-down local clinics where they had gone for years. Puzzled and frustrated hospital administrators discovered that the reason residents were shunning the expensive new facility was that they simply were not comfortable there – the staff were predominantly of different socioeconomic and ethnic groups. After replacing a number of staff with those that better matched the culture and ethnicity of local communities, demand for services increased dramatically (Henley & Schott).

While research has not demonstrated significant differences in the way people of different cultures use the internet (Krug, 2005), culture is a factor that influence use of physical information access points. Libraries, non-profits, social service agencies and other organizations serving in poor, predominantly minority urban locations go to great lengths to tailor their services, facilities and staff to the needs of their local populations (Colorado State Library, 2006).

Information that is targeted to Spanish-speaking immigrants, for example, must not only be in a language the consumer can understand, the way it is promoted and delivered must take into account cultural factors relating to gender, attitudes toward government and authority and the need for personal endorsement by leaders of the same cultural group.

People are generally more comfortable with and likely to engage with others of their same culture and ethnicity (Flache & Stark, 2008). Likewise, the more different a service or information medium feels, the larger the barrier presented. Service providers wanting to neutralize positional cultural barriers should be aware of variations in subtleties of speech, body language, ways of interacting with those in authority, styles of learning, and whether the individual’s background is a collective or individualistic society (Gilton, n.d.).

Lack of resources

The single greatest barrier to information access worldwide is lack of needed resources. The great majority of those in developed countries such as the United States think nothing of the ease with which they get on the internet or visit a local public library. The reality, however, is that only about 20% of the 6.7 billion people on the planet, the great majority of whom lives in developing countries with high levels of poverty, are able to tap into the wealth of information available on the internet (Internet World Stats, 2008). Though many people in developing countries may listen to the radio or watch television, they are unable to improve their situation through accessing knowledge repositories in disciplines such as agriculture and public health and tend to stay trapped in a cycle of poverty (Kenny, 2008).

Publicly-funded information providers have an obligation to ensure that economic hardship not serve as a barrier to information access. As written by the American Library Association (1993):

Library services that involve the provision of information, regardless of format, technology, or method of delivery, should be made available to all library users on an equal and equitable basis. Charging fees for the use of library collections, services, programs, or facilities that were purchased with public funds raises barriers to access. Such fees effectively abridge or deny access for some members of the community because they reinforce distinctions among users based on their ability and willingness to pay.

Information Overload

Most people in developed economies are constantly barraged with information from a variety of sources: email, radio, television, billboards, newspapers, newspapers and magazines in the grocery store, marketing materials in our mailboxes, telephone calls, text messages – the list goes on. Not only does monitoring and navigating all of these require time and emotional energy, the sheer volume of non-critical information can make locating specific high-quality information very difficult.
When asked about their greatest challenges, most instructional librarians serving undergraduate students will mention the struggle to impart an understanding of high-quality versus low quality information sources (Johnson, Jent & Reynolds, 2007). The best articles for a given topic may be accessible only through a subscription database available via the library, but why go to the trouble when you can just use Google instead? There is so much low-hanging fruit available on the internet that, even though it may be of inferior quality, the convenience factor trumps the level of scholarship. The huge amount of low-quality information available online and the ease with which it can be obtained act as barriers to obtaining higher quality information.

INTERFACE-BASED BARRIERS

Even when both information producer and consumer are knowledgeable and skilled, the medium or interface in which the information resides often acts as an impediment. This is especially true on the internet.

Design

Poorly designed applications and equipment make accessing desired information difficult or impossible. Often under-appreciated, usability deficiencies in computer-based systems can be extremely expensive and even result in the lossof human life (Cooper, 2004).

Though awareness of usability principles and best practices has come a long way in the past ten years, many major web initiatives still suffer from one or more major design flaws. These are often due to: failure to follow conventions; making choices difficult; excessive wordiness or needlessly complex writing; poor navigation; and ineffective search. All of these potential barriers can be identified and corrected by site owners through thorough user testing (Krug).

Through decades of research, usability guru Jakob Nielsen (n.d.) has identified the ten most common errors made in designing websites:

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

1. Bad Search
2. PDF Files for Online Reading
3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
4. Non-Scannable Text
5. Fixed Font Size
6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility
7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement
8. Violating Design Conventions
9. Opening New Browser Windows
10. Not Answering Users’ Questions

Pearrow (2000, p. 17-18) found that the most common reasons that websites are hard to use, and thus present unintended barriers to the user, are:

• Focus is paid to a site’s features or technical implementation.
• Designers are often technical people who do not know how end users think.
• Designers and developers are often victims to the latest trends (e.g., gratuitous use of frames).
• They assume that good usability is the result of untested common sense.
• People with little or no user interface experience end up making unfortunate decisions.

The practical impact of poor design is that users are not able to accomplish a desired task, an outcome known as task failure (Krug). On a website they may execute several searches, study the navigation tools, and select link after link but never find the information they want, or eventually find it after an unacceptably high level of frustration and time investment.

As stated by Froehlich (2008), “task failure typically occurs because of poor site navigation, poor information organization, confusing or inappropriate terminology, poor labeling, distracting visual design and links (or missing).”

The American Library Association Council wrote in an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (1993): “All information resources that are provided directly or indirectly by the library, regardless of technology, format, or methods of delivery, should be readily, equally and equitably accessible to all library users.”

SOCIAL/SYSTEMIC BARRIERS

Strategic Barriers

Some barriers to information access are intentional and reasonable. Not all information should be shared openly. Individual civil liberties demand that some information should be known to no one but ourselves. Examples include what we purchase, what books we choose to read, where we travel, and for whom we choose to vote. Most people would also agree that the government should be able to keep specific types of information private, such as intelligence truly related to keeping our nation safe and police investigations into criminal activity. The challenge lies in the gray area in between individuals’ right to privacy and government’s right to know everything about everyone. The legal and philosophical questions related to domestic surveillance by the government and what falls within the scope of “national security” is outside the scope of this analysis, but without question the exact barriers to information access between government and citizens will remain a controversial topic for many years to come.

Within organizations, barriers to information access may either be strategic and intentional or related to behavior and the internal culture. It is common for different levels of access to be granted to employees based on administrative rank or job area, and in some cases these barriers are legally required. For example, an employee might be able to access performance reports, but not competitive intelligence analysis or human resources records. There is an understanding that negative outcomes would result if all varieties of information were available to all employees, so access is strategically limited.

Reflecting the truism that information is power, organizational behavior determines to a great extent whether and how information is shared. Workplaces that are highly competitive and hierarchical tend to discourage sharing of information outside of business units, whereas those that are more collaborative and flatter tend to share information more freely.

Economics

Very often resource constraints limit the ideal level of investment in areas critical to increasing information’s findability, as well as individual’s ability to pursue it. For example, an organization operating on an extremely tight budget might not be able to invest in the user testing that could bring to light unintentional obstacles to information-seeking. IT workers may be forced to deliver information products containing significant flaws in order to meet rigid deadlines imposed by upper management. Or a poor country may not be able to invest in creating a telecommunications infrastructure that would enable its citizens to access the internet.

To fully understand the connection between wealth and information access consider these figures regarding internet usage in Africa (the world’s poorest continent) from the United Nations News Centre (2007):

• Less than 4 per cent of Africans have Internet access
• Broadband penetration is below 1 per cent
• 70 per cent of all continental traffic goes outside Africa
• The cost of Internet connectivity in Africa, says the World Bank, is the highest in the world – some $250-300 per month

Knowledge Hoarding Culture

Some organizational cultures are characterized by the tendency to hoard key information, rather than to share with others outside one’s group. Common among highly rigid and hierarchical companies, the lack of open information flow and trust tend to stifle innovation and continuous improvement. Individuals who want specific information may not be able to get it if others are unwilling to provide it.
To remove barriers related to a knowledge-hoarding business culture and foster sharing of information and knowledge, Davenport, De Long and Beer (1998) identify the following essential factors:

• Link to economic performance or industry value
• Use of the broader/infrastructure of both technology and organization
• A standard, flexible knowledge structure
• A knowledge friendly culture
• Clear purpose and language
• Change in motivational practices (e.g., for knowledge sharing)
• Providing multiple channels for knowledge transfer that reinforce one another
• Senior management support (e.g., in providing funding and sending messages about the critical importance of the project)

Conclusion

The cost of failure to access potentially valuable information is impossible to quantify, but is surely immense. The impact of barriers to information access is most often made manifest in terms of lost revenues and reduced quality of life. Information professionals are called to reduce these barriers wherever possible and to avoid creating new ones. Echoing the opening quote by Thomas Jefferson, our collective safety and stability in the future just may depend on it.

References

American Library Association. (1993, June 30). Economic barriers to information access: An interpretation of the library bill of rights. Retrieved November 5, 2008 from http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=interpretations&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=76532

Association of College & Research Libraries. (1989, January 10). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report. Retrieved November 8, 2008 from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.cfm

Bailey, D. (2004). The open society paradox. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey’s.

Colorado State Library. (2006, November). A Strategy to Encourage Diversity on Library Staffs [electronic version]. Report by the Special Populations & Issues Committee.

Cooper, A. (2004). The inmates are running the asylum: Why high tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity. Sams – Pearson Education: New York.

Davenport, T., De Long, D. & Beers, M. (Winter 1998). Successful knowledge management projects. Sloan Management Review, 39(2).

Flache, A. and Stark, T. ( 2008, July 31). Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA. Retrieved November 23, 2008 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p242278_index.html

Froehlich, T. (2008). Powerpoint lecture presented online. Retrieved November2, 2008 from http://faculty-l.slis.kent.edu/~tfroehli/iakm1/resources/08.IA.3.ppt

Gilton, D. (n.d.). Culture shock in the library: Implications for information literacy instruction. Retrieved November 8, 2008 from http://www.uri.edu/artsci/lsc/Faculty/gilton/People-CultureShockInThe%20Library.htm

Henley, A. & Schott, J. (1999). Culture, religion and patient care in a multi-ethnic society. London: Age Concern.

Internet World Stats. (2008). Top ten internet languages. Retrieved November 10, 2008 from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

Johnson, A.M., Jent, S. & Reynolds, L. (2007). Library instruction and information literacy. Reference Services Review, 35(4), 584-640.

Kenny, C., Navas-Sabater, J. & Qiang, C.. (2008). World Bank. Poverty Reduction Strategies: Information and Communication Technologies [electronic version].

Korzenny, F. & Korzenny, B. (2005). Hispanic Marketing: A Cultural Perspective. Burlington, MA : Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.

Pearrow, M. (2000). Web site usability handbook. Rockland, MA: Charles River Media.

Sutton, N. (2004, February 4). Local language publishing project promises to open up Net to Asia: Dominance of English content online impedes web use in many countries. ITworldcananda.com. Retrieved November 10, 2008 from http://www.directioninformatique.com/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=5088

United States Government Accounting Office. (2004). HHS’s efforts to promote health information technology and legal barriers to its adoption [Electronic version]. GAO-04-991R.

United Nations News Centre. (2007, September 19). Better IT connectivity can unleash Africa’s economic potential, UN officials say. Retrieved November 8, 2008 from http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23870