From information finders to product designers

Volume 20, Number 3 • March 2000

From information finders to product designers
by Kim Guenther

BUILDING DIGITAL LIBRARIES column relates that some predict the demise of the professional librarian with the wide-scale adoption of the Internet. Points out that as more information is offered online, librarians are increasingly called on to tame the Web and to design information products that feature ease of access to Web-based resources. States that in many ways, the revolution in today's Web publishing and product design arena is similar to the technical evolution of the publishing industry in the mid-1980s. Notes that information is now a product, and today's information market makes the creation of Web-based front ends even more important to offer user-friendly gateways to the digital libraries' resources. Outlines the strategy from the book "Designing Business: Multiple Media, Multiple Disciplines" by Clement Mok to provide an approach that can be used as a tool for librarians. Contains a list of references.