Reaction to Nardi and O’Day's chapter on Information Ecologies

Reading this article, I feel that the concepts of an information ecology are already known to us, but we have not defined it as such or learned it in this way before. I think that one of the most important aspects of the information ecology is the fact that each individual has an important part that is connected and associated with every other part within each information ecology. Also, I agree with their idea of diversity within the ecology as well as the fact they bring up of a keystone "species" which is the foundation for the existence of the ecology. Everyone must be specialized across a broad spectrum so that they create a complete, informed group and while each part is important, there must be a baseline that drives all of the forces in the group.

I think that WikiTravel is an information ecology because it is a community of specialized and knowledgeable people sharing information which is constantly evolving. In WikiTravel there are common goals among the users. They want to provide useful guides and suggestions to travelers going to any destination worldwide. Just like someone who lives in a small village in Ireland won't know much about my hometown in Connecticut and vise versa, it is the poster's responsibility to be knowledgeable and fulfill their part in the information ecology. WikiTravel was started by everyday people, is run by everyday people and is used by everyday people. And it is something that continues to grow.

Another information ecology that I participate in is the URI student newspaper, The Good Five Cent Cigar. At the Cigar there are a certain number of employees who all have a specific title and duty. Without any one of these students, the newspaper would not be able to run as smoothly. There are the journalists who do the research and write the stories; copy editors who edit the stories before submission; managing editors who edit the paper in progress; production managers who do the layout of the actual paper, making sure everything fits where it should and is formatted correctly. Then there are the section editors (sports editor, entertainment editor, news editor), the columnists, the Editor in Chief: the people who decide which stories to write and when to run them. After a night's work, the paper then goes electronically to the publisher and their information ecology prints and delivers the paper to URI.