Peter Lyman, U.C. Berkeley “Information Overload” expert dies
My wife Kathi pointed out that yesterday’s L.A. Times carried an obituary for Peter Lyman, a U.C. Berkeley information sciences professor who among many other things co-authored the widely read study, “How Much Information?” first published in 2000 and revised in 2003. There’s a longer obituary on the Cal website .
Take a look at the study’s executive summary and you’ll see some simply staggering numbers: 30% annual information growth per year. Golly. Information overload goes way beyong anything one person can make sense of, but Lyman and Varian at least pointed us in the right direction.
For two very personal blog posts about why Lyman’s death is a grevious loss to the information sciences community, see this post by danah boyd as well as this one by Mimi Ito.
And yes, I’m back on the grid.
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