SDI - A Little History

The other day I tried to access a newspaper website and was asked to register first before being allowed entrance. It didn't ask for much, but was still an annoyance. Sometimes these registrations involve giving out a fair amount of personal information, although usually there is no threat of identity theft, just the fear of being put on a mailing list (bad enough). This started me wondering how this activity fit into the information transfer process.

Information dissemination in itself simply means making information available without any effort to reach certain populations or to make sure they understand the information. However, in the field of information science, there is a process called selective dissemination of information, or SDI. This involves matching certain types of information with individuals or groups that share particular information needs. SDI has been around for a long time, at least since the 1960's.

Library automation began at a time when the quantity of new information being created was exploding, and a need arose for workers in science and industry to keep up with the latest research. One of the innovators in library automation, and inventor of automatic indexing, was H.P. Luhn, an IBM employee. In doing research for this blog, I discovered an interesting article by Luhn about SDI (Luhn, 1961). He, of course, was making his case for the use of electronic equipment in performing SDI, and raised the question, "to what extent shall the collectors and storers of information be obliged to inform potential users of the existence of new information, and to what extent shall those users be obliged to gain new information through their own efforts?" His answer was an emphatic yes to the need for more selective dissemination of information. Luhn's SDI system involved analyzing documents and creating a pattern of terms that characterize the document, much like the cataloging that a librarian does, and creating a profile of the user's needs that is stored in the system (Luhn, 1961). The documents can then be matched to users. Luhn's system used punched cards, but SDI has evolved along with technology, and is today very important in scientific and corporate libraries or information centers. Researchers really depend on this service in order to be effective in their jobs.

If we broaden the original concept of SDI, we can see how SDI could be used today in public libraries. Charles Anderson calls it "proactive reference" (Anderson, 1998). Libraries could provide RSS feeds on their websites that give updated information to targeted audiences. Among the suggested topics noted by Anderson are lists of new acquisitions, local government information, recurring library programs, and virtual book talks. In this broader and more recent concept of SDI, one can also see blogs, email alerts and E-news outreach playing a role in libraries and information centers (Huwe, 2006). These methods all require knowing the user's needs and filtering information so that specific information gets to a targeted audience.

SDI isn't a perfect tool. As I noted in the beginning of this blog entry, in the hands of some retailers looking for a way to sell merchandise, it can be invasive and annoying. The jury is still out on this use of SDI in a "sales" environment, but it does play an important role in the information transfer process for scientists and organization managers, and has great potential to be used by public libraries to better serve their patrons.

References:

Anderson, C.R. (1998). Proactive reference. Reference &User Services Quarterly, 38(2),
139-40. Retrieved from WilsonWeb database.

Huwe, T.K. (2006). Some best practices for personalizing outreach. Computers in Libraries,
26(2), 36-8. Retrieved from WilsonWeb database.

Luhn, H.P. (1961). Selective dissemination of new scientific information with the aid of
electronic processing equipment. American Documentation, 12(2), 131. Retrieved from
ABI/INFORM Global database.