Information that counts: An ethnographic analysis of the social organisation of information gathering and use within the International Monetary Fund
Richard Harper
Xerox Research Centre Europe
61 Regent St., Cambridge, CB2 1AB, U.K.
Abstract
The emergence of technologies like the World Wide Web is suggesting to some that the methods for the electronic delivery of information are now so robust and comprehensive that that there will be a radical change in the nature of information gathering and use. This paper will argue that though the means of information gathering and use may alter - namely away from analogue systems of technological mediation such as the phone and the fax towards digital technologies including the internet - the social and institutional processes that have hitherto supported information gathering and use will continue to be fundamental. Furthermore, this paper will argue that to the extent that this is so, then the conception of the ways in which "knowledge-based" work practice is supported needs to be broadened. Instead of devising technologies that can support individuated information gathering and use, then technologies will need to be developed that are supportive of the institutional processes that identify good information from bad and which allow incumbents of institutional roles to participate in the collaborative activity of making such distinctions.