1. The document discusses the characteristics of good quality information. 2. It states that information needs to be comprehensive, relevant, complete, available, reliable, concise, timely, flexible, explicit, bias-free, valid, factual, verifiable, current, broad in coverage, and cost-effective to be useful. 3. It also discusses the nature of information including semantic, documentary, and types based on user's approach, as well as natural characteristics like exponential growth, inter-disciplinarity, and information being a resource.

1. Characteristics of Information
TRIBHUVAN
UNIVERSITY
Department:
Library
& Information
Science
Class:
(MLIS)
Paper:
Library & Society
Unit
No. 7Mahendra Prasad Adhikari
Roll. 20
Origin /source  Message  Medium  Recipient
Presented By:

2. What is information ?
• Information is the act of telling or imparting knowledge.
• Information is facts communicated or learned.
• Information is interpreting data to make it useful.
• Information is knowledge acquired from others.
• Information is all about facts and figures.
• Information is the lifeblood of society of the 21st century.
• Information is power.

3. Types of information
• News
• Ideas and opinions
• Research results
• Routine information, like flight timetable, phone
numbers, maps, etc.
• History or background information
• Fact and figures
• Technical information
• Legal information , etc.
• Documentary/ Non-documentary, Audio/ video

4. Characteristics of information
• Comprehensiveness /Understandable:
• Relevant/Appropriateness:
• Completeness:
• Availability / Accessibility:
• Reliability: (Reasonable)
• Concise: (not more/ not less)
• Timeliness: (not delay)
• Flexibility:(easy to change suitable form)
• Explicitness: (no need to analysis)
• Biasfree / Impartiality:
• Validity/ authentic
• Fact / Accuracy
• Verifiability
• Currency / current / updated
• Breadth of coverage
• Format
• Medium
• Communicability
• Recipient
• Adaptability
• Cost-effectiveness:
Origin /source  Message  Medium  Recipient

5. Nature of information
• Approaches to information
– Structural approach
– Knowledge approach
– Message approach
• Nature by kind
– Semantic information (as a message)
– Semantic information ( as a process)
– Documentary information
• Nature base on users’ approach
• Commodity approach
– Commodity
– Process
– State of knowing
– Environment

6. Natural Characteristics of information
1. Exponential Growth
a. Doubling of Knowledge
2. Information is cumulative
a. Gathering of information
b. Storing information
c. Application
d. Generating information
3. Information is inter-disciplinary
a. Typology of inter-disciplinary
4. Information is scatter
a. In related and unrelated disciplines
b. Utility in relation to scatter
5. Information is a resource for future
a. A natural resource
b. Information is the major criterion
c. Information is a commodity

7. Understandable:
Since information is already in a summarized
form, it must be understood by the receiver so
that he will interpret it correctly. He must be
able to decode any abbreviations, shorthand
notations or any other acronyms contained in
the information.

8. Relevant:
• Information is good only if it is relevant. This
means that it should be pertinent and
meaningful to the decision maker and should
be in his area of responsibility.

9. Complete:
It should contain all the facts that are necessary
for the decision maker to satisfactorily solve the
problem at hand using such information.
Nothing important should be left out. Although
information cannot always be complete, every
reasonable effort should be made to obtain it.

10. Available:
Information may be useless if it is not readily
accessible ‘ in the desired form, when it is
needed. Advances in technology have made
information more accessible today than ever
before.

11. Reliable:
The information should be counted on to be
trustworthy. It should be accurate, consistent
with facts and verifiable. Inadequate or
incorrect information generally leads to
decisions of poor quality. For example, sales
figures that have not been adjusted for returns
and refunds are not reliable.

12. Concise:
Too much information is a big burden on
management and cannot be processed in time
and accurately due to “bounded rationality”.
Bounded rationality determines the limits of the
thinking process which cannot sort out and
process large amounts of information.
Accordingly, information should be to the point
and just enough – no more, no less.

13. Timely:
• Information must be delivered at the right time
and the right place to the right person. Premature
information can become obsolete or be forgotten
by the time it is actually needed.
• Similarly, some crucial decisions can be delayed
because proper and necessary information is not
available in time, resulting in missed
opportunities. Accordingly the time gap between
collection of data and the presentation of the
proper information to the decision maker must
be reduced as much as possible.

14. Cost-effective:
The information is not desirable if the solution is
more costly than the problem. The cost of
gathering data and processing it into
information must be weighed against the
benefits derived from using such information.

15. Flexibility:
The business and economic environment is
highly dynamic in nature. Technological changes
occur very fast. A rigid control system would not
be suitable for a changing environment. These
changes highlight the need for flexibility in
planning as well as in control.

16. Explicitness:
• Information is said to be of good quality if it
does not require further analysis by the
recipients for carrying out their activities.

17. Bias / Impartiality:
• Impartial information contains no bias and has
to be collected without any distorted view of
the situation.