M&T Information Traits

For my personal activity in class on October 15th, Sue and I partnered up as we both have our eyes on public libraries. We figured that our Information trait is specificity, which gradates from applied to theoretical. First, let's back it up for my readers (plural, surely... right?) who may not be familiar with M&T.

"Applied information is immediately useful in an operational sense. It tells how to do something, explains processes, or establishes procedures. Theoretical information gives possible reasons or clues as to why/how something works or behaves. The theoretical principles and logic of an event are sought in order to explain and predict."
MacMullin, Susan, and Robert Taylor. 1984. Problem dimensions and information traits. Information Society. 3 (1): 91-111.

So, since Sue and I plan on continuing to work in public libraries, probably with teens, we decided that Specificity of Use was a good Information Trait to focus on because our patrons will need information that applies directly to them, or information they will disseminate into school assignments.

A great example of this is teen abstinence. In practice, abstinence can very directly be applied, and exist in an operational sense. It tells how to do something (or not do it, as the case happens to be), and establishes a procedure for practice abstinence.

Theoretical information on abstinence, however, would perhaps be an opinionated source on why the author supports abstinence-only education, or why abstinence is considered by some to be the only morally correct sexual option. Readers could use these kind of theoretical sources to logically piece together their own moral decisions, and to decide their personal beliefs on abstinence and sex. S/he would follow the clues given in theoretical abstinence sources to
explain their own feelings on the topic.

The Internet Public Library provides Planned Parenthood as a trusted health resource. Their website is http://www.plannedparenthood.org/. The Planned Parenthood website gives health information in a matter of fact tone and does not judge the reader for any sexual decisions s/he makes. This would be a good source of applied information for a teen user seeking information on abstinence.

The Internet Public Library also cites Yahoo News as a reliable source. On Yahoo News, I searched their article database for "abstinence," and found an opinion article entitled: Abstinence-only education lacks effectiveness." This article is theoretical because it reflects the opinions of the author and also explains, using a few statistics on teen sex and teen pregnancies to explain what abstinence-only education programs lead to, and also to predict what will happen if abstinence-only education programs continue, according to the author. A link to the article is as follows:

http://media.www.reflector-online.com/media/storage/paper938/news/2007/10/23/Opinion/AbstinenceOnly.Education.Lacks.Effectiveness-3048710-page2.shtml

A TinyURL link to the same article, in case the long one doesn't work:

http://tinyurl.com/ynqcbx