Information Evaluation

Evaluation in the context of information services has mainly looked at three distinct areas: service performance evaluation, information retrieval evaluation, and information flow evaluation. This last area, especially used in archives and designated as “appraisal,” aims to define the information’s fate after several years of use, and its purpose is to eliminate documents in order to free space in the stacks. This study provides a brief overview of the two first areas and analyzes the third one in depth from a perspective that sees evaluation as a methodological operation that can be applied to information produced and used in any context. Criteria and parameters are proposed to assist with objective action in practice.