This document discusses the characteristics of information. It defines information and lists its types. The key characteristics of information discussed are that it should be relevant, complete, available, reliable, concise, timely, cost-effective, flexible, explicit, and impartial. Specifically, it states that information must be pertinent to the decision maker, contain all necessary facts, be accessible when needed, trustworthy, to the point with no excess, delivered at the right time, have benefits outweighing costs, adaptable to changes, require no further analysis, and be collected without bias.

1. Characteristics of
Information
TRIBHUVAN
UNIVERSITY
Department:
Library
& Information
Science
Class:
(MLIS)
Paper:
Library& Society
Unit
No. 7
A d h i k ari
Mahendra Prasad
Roll. 2 0
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
Origin /source  Message 
Medium  Recipient
Relevant/Appropriateness:
Completeness:
Availability / Accessibility:
Reliability: (Reasonable)
• Biasfree / Impartiality:
Fact /Accuracy
• Comprehensiveness /Understandable: • Validity/ authentic
• •
• •
• •
• •
•
•
•
Verifiability
Currency / current / updated
Breadth of coverage
Format
Medium
Communicability
• Concise: (not more/ not less)
• Timeliness: (not delay)
• Flexibility:(easy to change suitable form) •
• Explicitness: (no need to analysis)
Recipient
• Adaptability
• Cost-effectiveness:

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. Understandab
le:
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. Relevan
t:
• 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. Complet
e:
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. Availabl
e:
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. Reliabl
e:
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. Concis
e:
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. Timel
y:
• 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. Flexibilit
y:
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. Explicitnes
s:
• 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.