Historians likely will look back on the latter part of this century as a major turning point in the evolution of human society. The now well recorded, progressive implications of the Industrial Revolution, culminating in the Industrial Age, are giving way to the emergence of the Information Revolution.
It may not yet be fully a Brave
New World,
but the Information Age is well underway. It has forever transformed the working
world. As an indication, in some fields the half-life of technical-information
can be as short as three months. In some industries, technology
is obsolete even before patent applications can be submitted and
approved. Governments, companies, educational institutions, and
people struggle to keep pace.
At the same time, recent world events have driven home the interdependence of people and nations. The economic surge from the Pacific Rim led by Japan, the revolutionary potential of the European Community, and the unfolding political, economic, and structural implications of the long-awaited reformation of the communist system in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are converging with this Information Revolution.
The experience of more than a decade since the explosion of innovative technologies, accompanied by the rapid information creation fostered by that technology, has been dramatic. The now identifiable developing trend challenges the former national economic cornerstone of reliance on manufacturing productivity with the need to enhance literacy, increase productivity, and strengthen democracy to meet the requirements of an information-dependent world. The pivotal need for libraries and information services has been defined.
In a Nation that
boasts one of the highest standards of
living in the world, literacy remains a vexing problem: The U.S. ranks
49th in literacy among the 158 member countries of the United
Nations. In real terms, Project Literacy U.S. estimates that
as many as 23 million adult Americans are functionally illiterate,
lacking skills beyond the fourth-grade level, with another 35
million semi-literate, lacking skills beyond the eighth grade
level. One state, Texas, estimated in 1988 that illiteracy cost
that state $17.2 billion yearly through lost productivity, unrealized
tax revenue, and welfare and crime-related costs. With literacy's
integral role in an individual's self-image and as a common denominator
that brings people together, the toll on people in human terms
is evident.
The effects of illiteracy permeate the fiber of the Nation, undermining the ability of its citizens to live and work in the world of today and to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world of tomorrow. The globalization of the world marketplace and its information resources dictates what, where, and how we educate our citizens who must compete in the world arena and develop literacy in all forms to effectively absorb information in new forms and formats.
Concurrently, demographic and societal changes, visible through the last decade and documented in the 1990 Census, multiply the complexity of meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse population. These changes are a natural outgrowth of the success and attraction of the United States as the world leader.
Trends show this diversity will increase during the 21st Century. Fully 30 percent of U.S. school children are from racial or cultural minority families. And early in the next century that percentage is projected to increase to 35 percent. Some states are expected to have no "majority" group by the Year 2000.
Coupled with these
trends is the representation of
every known religious denomination, more than 100 different languages spoken
in our schools, and the spectrum of special-need Americans from
the gifted and talented to those with learning difficulties and
physical limitations. The need and the scope of the task become
apparent.
In addition, some trend data project an increase in the number of children living below the poverty line, which has been shown to create further challenges to learning and literacy. The current national high school dropout rate of over 30 percent is another measure of literacy.
All these factors point to the urgent need for programs attuned to the young people upon whom the future of the Nation rests.
Literacy provides leverage for responding to the needs of this increasingly diverse population in a fast-paced, competitive world. Literacy is, in fact, the fulcrum for increasing productivity and strengthening democracy.
The abundance of technologies
and associated
information places new demands on people in the work force who must adapt to these
changes. The velocity and rapid turnover of information has created
today's "knowledge worker" who must be prepared with
lifelong learning habits, access to relevant information, and
analytical skills to remain productive in his/her chosen field.
Some estimates indicate that today's worker will have to update
skills every three years.
Workers in all walks of life - whether in government, business, philanthropic, or service sectors - are restructuring their thinking, planning, and activities to stay current and competitive. Key to the process is harnessing the technology to permit access to information. For example, mastering the power of the computer requires designing ease of operation to permit access by the widest range of end users. Computers affect everyone - skilled and semi-skilled worker alike - who now must function on an assembly line, repair an automobile, take inventory, develop proposals, operate an ATM machine or cash register, or access research information with computer-related skills.
Collection, preservation, and retrieval of information in a timely and useful form for the end user is a major goal if we are to build and maintain a productive, competitive work force in an interconnected global market. The nation which moves to an information-based economy, harnesses knowledge through technology, and applies it through an educated work force will assure its people I economic independence and the standard of living they desire.
As dependence on information grows, the potential increases for emergence of an Information Elite - the possibility of a widening gap between those who possess facility with information resources and those denied the tools to access, understand, and use information.
This dichotomy could
threaten to send fissures into
the democratic base of the Nation. Thomas Jefferson's warning that the success
of a democratic society depends upon an "informed and educated"
populace could well have been proclaimed today. This country's
founders wove into the framework of the Constitution not only
balanced government institutional powers, but also equal and balanced
rights for the individual. The intellectual freedom to access
information and pursue truths upon which to base values, make
judgments, and achieve goals as full participants in society is
the bedrock of a strong democracy.
Today, more than ever,
information is power.
Access to it - and the skill to understand and apply it - increasingly is the way
power is exercised. Information has become so essential that
a large and growing part of federal, state, and local government,
academic institutions, and the private sector work force is engaged
in information-related activities. Tens of thousands of organizations,
from small businesses, publishers, and associations to global
industries, work in the trade of information distillation and
delivery.
Nationally, information delivery systems include more than 30,000 public, academic, and special libraries, and an estimated 74,000 school libraries and media centers. It is telling testimony to the insight of Benjamin Franklin that, in 1731, he established the Nation's first library, the Philadelphia Library Company, a subscription library for tradesmen and mechanics. In describing Franklin's undertaking, Joseph Leroy Harrison in The Public Library in the United States wrote:
"Franklin's very simple but hitherto unthought-of device was a new and radical departure. Its effect was toward a more even distribution of intellectual wealth, the establishment of an intellectual democracy."
As literacy is key to both productivity and democracy, so are literacy and productivity essential to a strong democracy. All are intertwined, interconnected, interdependent, inseparable.
Thus, the role of library and information services as "schoolrooms for lifetime learning" is central to the Nation's long-term viability as a global leader. A steady path is required to withstand the contradictory environment of cyclical economic pressures to trim budgets at the expense of providing a full and expanded range of information services to meet the needs of a changing world.
The challenge remains to
provide integrated, cohesive,
cooperative national policies and programs to crystallize the continued educational
contribution of libraries and information services to enhance
literacy, increase productivity, and strengthen democracy. Meeting
the challenge will require partnerships of federal, state, and
local governments, small and large businesses, and not-for-profit
organizations. To fail to aggressively map the information future
would deprive the people of an essential mechanism for shaping
the future of their society and for making enlightened adjustments
to the role of governments, industry, and institutions to respond
to their needs and those of the country.
To address these challenges, the delegates to the White House Conference on Library and Information Services came to Washington. They have developed a wide-ranging array of recommendations and petitions, drawn from a perspective of the past, an understanding of the present, and a vision of the future to meet the information needs of the people of this Nation.
