The coincidence of the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry and Information Awareness Month offers the opportunity to explore how well our communities are using information and knowledge in regard to natural disasters. In early January this year the media carried horrific images and stories of the loss of life and damage caused by flooding in the southern Queensland towns of Toowoomba and Grantham and in the cities of Brisbane and Ipswich. Surprise was expressed at how such severe events could have happened. But the reality is that these floods have their predecessors, as explored in the article Queensland floods: information, history and knowledge.
Tags: Climate, Climate History, Floods, Information Awareness Month, Information management, Knowledge and Information Management, Knowledge management, National Library of Australia, Queensland Floods, Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry, Trove
Information and knowledge management | Bruce Boyes | 
5 May 2011 8:52 pm | 
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A new Knowledge and Information Framework outlining how regional natural resource management (NRM) knowledge and information needs across Queensland can be better managed has been released by the Regional Groups Collective (RGC), which represents the state-wide interests of the 14 regional NRM bodies in Queensland. To download the framework click here or visit the Collective Projects page of the RGC website.
The collaborative online wiki www.collections.org.au has also been established to document NRM projects and facilitate knowledge and information sharing for NRM groups.
There is so much talk of ‘information overload’ in our society. Are we really overloaded or are we over-consuming? I have been hearing about this concept for so many years now and I was fascinated by this blog posting by Clay Johnson which I fell across this week. Clay’s argument is that we are over-consuming information just the way we over-consume food. It is in our power to control this over-consumption.
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On 11 May 2010 the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts announced a new initiative to address the environmental information needs of the nation. The National Plan for Environmental Information is the first step toward a long-term commitment to reform Australia’s environmental information base and build this critical infrastructure for the future.
The plan will coordinate and prioritise the way the Australian Government collects, manages and uses environmental information. It represents a long-term approach to building and improving our environmental information base. In the first four years, the initiative will:
- establish the Bureau of Meteorology as the Australian Government authority for environmental information
- formalise arrangements to coordinate priorities and activities across government
- review existing information resources, and environmental information activity
- begin building priority national environmental datasets and the infrastructure to deliver them.
To find out more click here.
Have you ever thought about the amazing amount of information we now live with compared to 50 years ago? How are we storing it for retrieval later? Take a look at this slideshow ‘Shift Happens‘ to get an idea of the rate of growth in information. At the ARRC we even have a section in our Information and Knowledge Resource Kit on the importance of managing information and knowledge.
Information is the record of our civilization and if we don’t keep the records we can’t retrieve them later.
During May each year all the ‘information and knowledge’ associations get together and celebrate the work we do. They run a series of events to educate and promote the management of information and knowledge. These events are conducted all over Australia so no matter where you live there is something happening for you.
The theme in 2010 is “Connecting Information and People” and details can be found on the Information Awareness Month website.
