Use-Oriented Information and Knowledge Management: Information Production and Use Practices as an Element of the Value and Impact of Information

There is a broad consensus that better models for assessing the impact of information efforts are needed to inform information and knowledge management and digital preservation. In contrast to measuring the quality of information, less attention has been directed to the assessment of knowledge and information processes as its constituent. Using archaeology and archaeological information as a sample context, the aim of this conceptual paper is to probe in to the evaluation of the impact and usefulness of information by taking into account the practices of how it is produced, managed and used. On a basis of a review and discussion of earlier literature on the impact of information and evaluation and management of information in archaeology, it is proposed that a better understanding of how the impact of information unfolds as a part of its production, management and use could contribute to the development of infrastructures, repositories and procedures for the management of the preservation and use of these resources.