Full Title: Strategic issues in information : with special reference to developing countries - the world is experiencing an information revolution -- a revolution of the same magnitude as the industrial revolution. The librarian's concern has to become the scholar's access to information in an electronic world, See C06526 for original; Keynote address presented at the IAALD Regional Conference; 1988 November 21-24; the Universiti Pertanian, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia, The United States is being revolutionized by the impact of powerful computers and telecommunications. The high technology is producing a society in which information, or knowledge cap[ital is emerging as a key economic resource. The technology imperative is not happening only in the United States: It is also of astonishing economic importance in the Pacific Rim and Northern European countries. Those with control of information will be the power brokers of the future. This has shifted dramatically the nature of the resources necessary for any nation to survive in the global economy. Possession of information capital will be more important than ordinary capital. The strategic issue held in common by the United States and developing countries is the need to possess information capital. The issue is the same, but the strategy is different. The basic strategies in each case are discussed. (original)
Cites a report indicating that more than 50 percent of the monographs and serials in the National Agricultural Library collection are disintegrating and that more than one-fourth of the volumes are brittle, requiring that their contents be transferred to another medium in order to be useful and to escape loss to the scientific world.
Abstract and citation available online via EbscoHost.com. 1 page., Introduces the UNESCO Public Library Manifesto, serving as the gateway to equitable information services to all.
Argues that the knowledge and ability to build and describe collections needs to be spread among a larger distributed group of participants in the face of two trends: (1) Traditional methods of organizing,k describing and providing access to documents are being overwhelmed by the ever-increasing number of digitized materials. (2) Cultural and indigenous knowledge is disappearing as environments and people cease to exist. Suggests three mechanisms.
