There was a time when, as librarians, our concerns were focussed on books and readers. In that time, not so long ago, technology meant an electric typewriter and a telephone. If the typewriter had a correcting feature and the telephone a conferencing feature, we had word processing and teleconferencing. Those days, when we measured quality in numbers of volumes and square feet of space, are gone. The availability of high technology information management tools has altered the way we must perceive information and information service. As a result, we must alter the way we deliver information services, and the ways we plan for providing information and evaluating the quality of service. We must not, like the railroadmen of the past, mistake our mission, thinking that we are in the library business, rather than the information business. At the same time, we must address complex ethical issues foreshadowed by Orwell in 1984 (Orwell, 1949).
 

2. AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY

Consider the forms of high technology available to us for the generation, storage and retrieval of information.

• There is sophisticated word and image processing hardware and software to allow us to create, display and store text-based words, still and moving visual images, and sound of all kinds, allowing us to combine them to create compound documents.

• There is tape- and disc-based digital storage in the now traditional computer.

• There is optical storage using lasers to store and retrieve digitally encoded text character and image based information.

• There are telecommunications links to enable the transmission of information in all of these forms to sights removed as for away from the storage sight as a few feet or a few conti-nents. "The metanetwork of connected computer networks... is the prototype of a new com-munications infrastructure that will be as pervasive as the international telephone network" (Quarterman, 1990). FAX machines, cellular telephones, modems, networks, like BITNET and the proposed NREN (National Research and Education Network) (Lynch, 1990), micro-wave, and satellite transmission facilities provide us with global access to information. In juxtaposition to the title of the British publication, Wireless World (1932 - 1983), we now have a wired world.

3. THE MARKETPLACE

For virtually two decades free market fee-based information services like DIALOG have served libraries, scientific and technical research sites, and industry. Now as free market information services reach into the home, allowing subscribers to order groceries and do other shopping, perform banking tasks, play games, access information, and send electronic mail, "library" users come to expect more efficient and effective information delivery from traditional information providers, libraries. It is the responsibility of Library and Information profes-sionals to meet these expectations. In some places, libraries manage cable television fran-chises, provide teletext services, access to personal computers, and a host of other "high tech" services.

4. LINKING TECHNOLOGIES

These services, and the changing perspectives associated with them are a result of tech-nological convergence. The term convergence, in this context has come to have two related meanings. First, the convergence of high technology for information manipulation and transfer, when linked together into systems and networks brings about a convergence not only of technology, but of the traditional forms of information. For instance, is the Video Ency-clopedia of the Twentieth Century a videodisc, an encyclopedia, a collection of motion pictures and still pictures, or a computer program? The answer, of course, is that it is a compound document. Ceefax, Prestel, teletext and FAXTEX are all examples of the convergence of technology. The second meaning of the term convergence has to do with the coming together of functions, as suggested by Greg Kearsley's article entitled "The convergence of computer-based library and learning systems" (Kearsley, 1983). Traditional functions fulfilled by periodicals, mail services and librarians are combined with the aid of high technology, pro-viding text delivery to remote sites via CRT screens.

Online databases, OPACs, LANs, national and international networks, microwave and satellite links, FAX machines and file servers are all here to meet the needs of information management. What is needed is coordinated comprehensive planning to set standards and establish protocols for linking these technologies and the information resources that are at the heart of the library enterprise. Currently we have the High Sierra standards for CD-ROM's, international mail standards X.400/X.500 (Lynch, 1990, p. 11), and significant progress toward providing compatibility between the Macintosh and PC spheres of influence. Not only does Quarterman indicate that "the most important formal standards bodies are those of world-wide scope," he devotes a chapter to the ISO, ANSI CEN/CENELEC, JISC and a host of others (Quarterman, 1990). The National Information Standards Association (NISO) has proven to be an excellent forum for discussions of convergence and globalization in the information marketplace (Information Leads, 1990). Continued cooperation is essential if a new generation of technology like the current three sphere a technological influence in television standards is to be avoided.

5. APPLICATIONS

Despite the complexity, bewildering to many, all of this high technology merely allows us to perform and expand upon traditional information processing activities. The information gathering process has evolved intellectually, from observation and reporting through images, to reporting of observations derived from systematic study and reported in a character based language. This developmental process has been fundamental to future developments. The evolution of production of information has moved from cave painting, creation of stone and clay tablets, scrolls and manuscripts, to the technological innovations of printed books employing movable type, power presses and rotogravure up to today's computer typesetting, and desktop publishing. The objectives of gathering, organizing , and recording information have not changed. The process of gathering has been facilitated by dataprocessing and elec-tronic surveillance equipment, but the analysis and organization of information is still a human intellectual activity performed before and during the use of writing and image formation technologies.

The collection of information materials has changed little since the days of the Alexan-drian Library. Attempts to systematically collect information on all subjects in all formats is still a major value in the library world. It is well understood that to collect all information under one roof in hard copy formats is a modern impossibility. Instead, information profes-sionals have developed shared collecting strategies to insure breadth of collection in regional, national, and international consortia.

The organization of all of this information has been for more than one hundred years the responsibility of the library cataloger. Although technology has made information sharing a foundation of this activity, the taxonomies and basic rules of modern cataloging practice were laid down in the last century, being only refined in this century. High technology has not much changed the ways in which we organize information.

Dissemination of information is an area of traditional library and publishing activity that has been revolutionized by technological advancements. As previously described, the linking of communication technologies with sophisticated storage and retrieval technologies and the application of digital technology to the production of information has made almost unknowable quantities of information readily available through online databases, catalogs, FAXs and various teletext services. A small computer and a modem with a relatively inexpensive com-munications package and access to a telephone are the technological requirements to open these floodgates.

The ease of widespread, economical transfer of almost any kind of information from almost any source in almost any format has radically affected the ways in which we must think about collecting information. A network of sites, sharing collection responsibilities is not new to us. The close linking by sophisticated information transfer technology is new, and provides an appealing model. The challenge in maximizing the effectiveness of this model, however, will depend on reorganizing many of the internal functions of the traditional library.

Production and dissemination of information are being melded by the emergence of online journals. Two such journals, The Public Access Computer Systems Review, and Public Access Computer Systems News, available through BITNET are described in "Elec-tronic Serials on BITNET" (Bailey, 1991). This process too will affect the future internal organization of libraries, and the methods of discharging their mission.

Seeing the beneficial aspects of improving access to information through linking high technologies is obvious. The challenges of reorganizing resources and educating clients to cope with new systems is the challenge.

6. EXAMPLE: THE PREPARATION OF A CONFERENCE PAPER

The evolution of this paper is a good example of the move from previous generations of technology through an evolutionary process of using state of the art technology. I first conceived of this paper while attending the Computers in Libraries Conference in Oakland, California last March. Despite the high technology subject matter, the conference itself was technologically a 1950's "platform." Those attending the conference journeyed by automobile and airplane to attend the conference in person. The speakers presented their papers, some-times with the assistance of overhead transparencies or slides projected with Carousel projectors. Most of the vendors presented their products, no matter how advanced, with printed materials. Only a handful of demonstration hardware was available. We only talked about high technology.

In creating this document, my aim, modest in terms of today's technology with its capacity to create sophisticated compound documents. My aim was to create a traditional conference "paper," using technology to develop the document without actual paper. I prepared the abstract of this paper for submission using a sophisticate wordprocessing program mounted on a 386 platform personal computer with a large memory. When I replied to the letter of acceptance, I did so using the electronic mail function of the Digital VAX 11780 computer on my campus. The VAX is linked through a local area network (LAN) to the PC on my desk. Through communications software mounted on my PC, I was able to connect to the LAN to access the VA, thus enabling me to use the E-mail function to reply to the letter of acceptance. The transaction was entirely electronic, requiring no paper.

When I began to work in earnest on the paper, I retrieved the abstract from the digital memory of my computer, made a copy using the wordprocessing software, and began to write. All of my revisions were made on screen, without the intermediary step of paper copies.

When the paper was complete, I submitted the "manuscript" of a computer diskette for publication. The printing process was the first time the document went to paper.

This, however, is not the end of the technological story. Now that this paper will be published in the conference Proceedings, it will be indexed in Library Literature, which will be issued not only in paper, but online and on CD-ROM . Soon, a researcher wishing to know more about linking communication technologies can find a citation to this document via both electronic means. It is likely that soon the full text of this paper will become available through optical digital storage on optical digital discs (ODD's). These ODD's, mounted on a "jukebox" will allow ready electronic access to the text itself, which will be readily accessible through the digital indexes produced for Library Literature.

A service new in the U.S., FAXTEXT allows the searching of databases (like Library Literature) using a conventional touchtone telephone. No computer or modem is required The results of the search, which might include a citation to this document, are read over the tele-phone by a voice simulator. Service options include FAX delivery of citations and FAX delivery of full text, as well as overnight mail delivery of hard copy (Tenopir, 1990). If we wish to send a copy of the paper to a researcher without these databases, we can do so with a FAX machine rather than through the mail.

What are the ramifications of this process?

7. PRACTICAL ISSUES

"Computer networks are becoming increasingly important to the daily functioning of higher education and research communities. Disruption of such networks (either accidentally or maliciously) is a critical concern" (Lynch, 1990). In libraries that are currently highly automated, such as the one at Pratt Institute, we have learned the difficulties posed by the unavailability of online catalogs and CD-ROM databases due to routine maintenance, hardware and software difficulties, malicious interference, and chance. It is essential that backup resources and procedures be developed to support emerging linked information networks.

8. ETHICAL ISSUES

8.1. Document Integrity

In 1984, it was Winston Smith's job to make corrections to the articles in the Times. "The messages he received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter,or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify" (Orwell, 1949, p. 39).

"As soon as all the corrections... had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on

the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivable hold any political or ideological significance." (Orwell, 1949,

pp. 40-1).

With large centralized computer databanks storing text and images, still and moving, silent and with sound, the capacity for facilitating such alteration of the documents that form the collective memory of society is staggering. Orwell warns us, '"Who controls the past," ran the party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"' (Orwell, 1949, p. 35).

8.2. Privacy

Another area of professional and individual concern with the information explosion and the proliferation of network linked access is privacy and confidentiality. It is important to understand the enormous power of current technology to gather, manipulate, store and retrieve vast quantities of information (The Information Society, 1980). It is essential to understand the power that information gives to political groups, and the skill with which the information and the power it provides is manipulated. (Computers, Spies and Private Lives, 1981). Not only is data about individuals and group, by turns accurate and fictitious, but information created by and belonging to individuals and groups subject to misuse. The consequences of failure to adequately regulate information use to protect individual rights could be enormous beyond conception. It should be remembered that the database from which the Holocaust was managed was index cards in shoe-box size file boxes.

8.3. Differential Access

While providing wonderful resources for the business, scholarly, and academic commu-nities, the existence of high technology systems widens the gaps between the affluent and the less affluent. In the United States we currently are experiencing the effects of different levels of availability to high technology in elementary and secondary schools. The fundamental issue of free access so important to librarians in the United States becomes a major question in this era of shrinking monetary resources.
 
 

9. INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

With the power to make more information more widely available comes the concomitant power to censor. Now more than ever it is imperative that the fundamental of intellectual freedom espoused by the American Library Association (ALA, 1989) be a foundation our information policy.

10. CONCLUSIONS

There is much work to be done developing standards and establishing plans to link infor-mation high technology, formulating measures to protect privacy, ensure fair access, support intellectual freedom, and protect the integrity of documents in the database. Once this is done, we must be prepared to evaluate our effectiveness not in terms of volume counts and numbers of seats, but in terms of successful matches between query and source retrieved. The benefits of linking technologies to provide wider access to information are untold. Linking techno-logies allows more access to information, which in turn leads to the potential for the linking of more ideas. It is the linking of ideas that permits discovery, and thus progress. As usual, the task of the current and future generations of librarians and other information professionals carries enormous responsibilities. Herein lie the challenges.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to thank Dr. Sheldon Green of NASA GISS for his supportive, informative and encouraging discussions which led in part to the production of this document.
 
 

REFERENCES

American Library Association, Office of Intellectual Freedom. Intellectual Freedom Manual. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 1989.

Bailey, Charles W., Jr., "Electronic serials on BITNET," in Computers in Libraries '91: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Computers in Libraries Conference. Westport, CT: Meckler, 1991, pp. 10-11.

Computers, Spies and Private Lives. videocassette. New York, NY: Time-Life Video, 1981.

"Convergence and globalization in the information marketplace," International Leads, Fall 1990: 5- 6.

The Information Society: A Film of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. videocassette. New York: PBS Video, 1980.

Kearsley, Greg, "The Convergence of computer-based library and learning systems," In Proceedings of the First National Conference of the Library and Information Technology Association (U.S.), Baltimore, MD, 1983. Chicago: American Library Association, 1984. pp. 196-200.

Lynch, Clifford A., "The growth of computer networks: A status report," Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, June/July 1990: 10-11.

Orwell, George. 1984. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace, and World, 1949.

Quarterman, John S. The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide. Digital Press, 1990.

Tenopir, Carol, "Online Databases; Online without a modem," Library Journal, November 1, 1990: 67-68.

Video Encyclopedia of the Twentieth Century. New York, NY: CEL Educational Resources, 1986.