GENERAL DEFINITIONS RELATED TO

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

1. INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

The skillful exercise of control over the acquisition,

organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of
information resources, usually within a company,
organization, or government agency, including
documentation and records management.

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2. INFORMATION ETHICS
The branch of ethics that deals with the relationship between:
1. The creation, organization, dissemination, and use of
information, and the implicit ethical standards and;
2. Explicit legal codes that govern human conduct in society.

Information ethics is a very broad concept which giving birth to,

among others:
• Information law
• Intellectual freedom
• Censorship
• Privacy
• Intellectual property
• Plagiarism.

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3. INFORMATION INDUSTRY
• A broad term encompassing all the companies
and individuals in the business of providing
information and access to information for a profit.

• Examples of the activities include the mass

media, publishers, software and database
producers and vendors, indexing and abstracting
services, and freelance information brokers.

• Public libraries, academic libraries, and many

types of special libraries are not part of the
information industry because they are nonprofit.

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 4. INFORMATICS

The formal study of information--its structure,

functions, properties, and the technology used to
record, organize, store, retrieve, and disseminate
it.

5. INFORMATION LITERACY
Skill in finding the information one needs, which requires
knowledge of how to search for the information and the
sources how libraries are organized, familiarity with the
resources they provide (including information formats and
computerized search tools), and knowledge of standard
research techniques.

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 6. INFORMATION NEED
• A gap in a person's knowledge which, when experienced at the
conscious level as a question, gives rise to a search for an answer.
• Persons with information needs often end up at the reference desk
of the nearest library, where it is the responsibility of the reference
librarian to determine the precise nature of the inquiry, usually by
conducting an informal reference interview, and then recommend
resources that satisfy the user's request. They also may turn to the
assistance of the information professional to meet their needs.

• It is the job of collection development librarians and information

professionals to anticipate the information needs of the clientele,
sometimes with the aid of survey research, and to select materials
that meet those needs.

• Patrons with questions, which cannot be answered using the

resources of the library, may be referred to other information
providers in the local community, or elsewhere.

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 7. INFORMATION SCIENCE
• A branch of knowledge which investigates the sources,
development, dissemination, use, and management of
information in all its forms. Compare with informatics and
library science.

8. INFORMATION LAW
• The regulation and control of information by the state,
including laws regarding censorship, forgery, copyright and
intellectual property, freedom of information, intellectual
freedom, privacy, and computer crime.
• Also, a specialized branch of legal studies dealing with the
regulation of information

(you should be able to differentiate between information

ethics and information law)

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 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES
An intellectual property is any product of the human intellect
that is unique, novel, and unobvious (and has some value in
the marketplace). Among them are:
· idea
· invention
· expression or literary creation
· unique name
· business method
· industrial process
· chemical formula
· computer program process
· presentation

The word property is generally used to mean a possession, or

more specifically, something to which the owner has legal
rights

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 GENERAL VIEWS
• Intellectual Property is defined as any new and useful
process, machine, composition of matter, life form,
article of manufacture, software, copyrighted work or
tangible property

• Property that can be protected under existing state

laws, including copyrightable works, ideas, discoveries,
and inventions. Such property would include novels,
sound recordings, a new type of mousetrap, or a cure
for a disease.

• It includes such things as new or improved devices,

circuits, chemical compounds, drugs, genetically
engineered organisms, data sets,
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• software, musical processes or unique and innovative
uses of existing Inventions.

• Intellectual Property may or may not be patentable or

copyrightable. It is created when something new and
useful has been conceived or developed, or when
unusual, unexpected or non-obvious results, obtained
with an existing Invention, can be practiced for some
useful purpose.

• Intellectual Property can be created by one or more

individuals, each of whom, to be an Inventor, must have
conceived of an essential element or have contributed
substantially to its conceptual development.

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 ORGANIZATION
• The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This
organization was founded in 1967 as one of the specialized
agencies of the United Nations organizations, and it has since
remained responsible for the protection of intellectual
property.

• Because the WIPO is the leading authority on this matter, we

turn to the text of the Convention Establishing the WIPO for a
definition of intellectual property. The treaty states that
intellectual property generally refers to rights relating to,
among others, the following:
1. literary, artistic, and scientific works
2. performances of performing artists, phonograms, and
broadcasts
3. inventions in all fields of human endeavor
4. scientific discoveries.

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• In other words, intellectual property, in the
most general sense, encompasses creations of
the human intellect and their protection,
usually by copyright.

• WIPO is internationally responsible for both the

protection of intellectual property (by means
of cooperation among its member nations) and
the legal and administrative aspects of it. To
this end, it administers various treaties, all
which attempt to better the protection of
intellectual property.

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 Copyright

• Copyright is a form of protection provided by laws to the

authors of original works, otherwise known as the
owners of intellectual property. The international Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works in 1971 established that works protected under
copyright include:

1. Literary and artistic works, which includes every

production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domain,
whatever the mode of expression
2. Dramatic and dramatico-musical works
3. Choreographic works
4. Photographic works
5. Works of applied art.

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WIPO, has established guidelines in its

Copyright Law where it is generally agreed
that only the owner of the copyright is
authorized to do the following with the
work:
1. Reproduce it
2. Prepare derivative works based upon it
3. Distribute copies of it to the public
4. Perform the work publicly (if applicable)
5. Display the work publicly.

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 PROTECTION REGARDING INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
• Protections come in terms of Copyright and
Industrial Property
• Industrial Property is divided into three:
· Patents
· Trademarks
· Industrial Design
PATENT
An invention is patentable if it is new, involves
an inventive step and is industrially applicable.
An invention is defined as being an idea which
permits in practice the solution to a specific
problem in the field of technology and may be
a product of process.
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Some ideas which may otherwise be inventive are specifically
excluded from patentability. These are:

• Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods

• Plant or animal varieties or essentially biological processes for
the production of plants or animals, other than made-made
living micro-organisms, micro-biological processes and the
products of such micro-biological processes
• Schemes, rules or methods for doing business, performing
purely mental acts or playing games
• Methods for the treatment of the human or animal body by
surgery or therapy, and diagnostic methods practiced on the
human or animal body. But this does not apply to products used
in such methods

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Trademark

• Trademark is a mark used on goods or services

which can consist of a word, a device, name,
signature, letter or any of those combination.

Industrial Design
• Industrial Design protects the shape, pattern, or
color of the article which must appeal to the eyes
and reproducible by industrial means

• It is new which must not have been publicly

disclosed.

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