PANEL ON NII AND GII - GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY'S ROLES
COMMENTS ON NII AND GII

Forest Woody Horton, Jr.

Vice President, FID
Washington, D.C. 20037, USA
woody@cni.org

Thank you very much, Peter. Ching-chih, I have never been accused of not being "loud enough," so I won't disappoint you here in this presentation due to the microphone setup. I'll try to speak up.

I might say as to the organization of this conference that this is probably the first conference which I've been asked to speak at where I felt that my paper and my remarks were exactly positioned in the right place in the program. Whether you finally agree, and find what I have to say interesting, is another matter.

Already this morning we have had numerous discussions where people are calling attention to the need for making the important distinction between conduit and content. This has paved the way for me to begin this session. The message that I have this morning is a somewhat subtle one. It has nothing to do with hardware or technology; rather, it has to do with the leadership role of library and information science, both in individual countries and globally or internationally. My paper, which you now have was published several years ago, and defined the term, national information infrastructure (NII). At that time, no one heard of that term, and it sounded like a very fancy phrase. I used to get calls commenting, "Woody, why do you want to use this overly complicated term? Why don't you simply call it a national telephone system? Well, now we even have the global information infrastructure (GII). This term is something which is yet to be defined, and may never be fully defined. But the reason I am here speaking on the topic is that, I think, that time has come. I would like to try to give you my definition of an NII, and a GII. And, in so doing, I'll try to paint a more aggressive and more assertive role for the National Commission for Libra-ries and Information Science in all of this. I don't see the Commission's Chair-person here now, so that means all my blows will have to fall on the broad shoul-ders of Peter, the Executive Director. But I hope my comments are going to be taken positively and constructively. Peter, please don't take any of them in a personal way.

It is my impression that the NII and GII national debates are increasingly going on, certainly in the U.S. And, by the way, I am now attending a NTIA-sponsored Virtual Conference, so we should have PCs in here so that our interna-tional visitors could see this electronic town hall meeting as we Americans call them. I had to get up at 5:00 am last Sunday to log on to the Internet to read some 180 messages that just came in overnight. And the other day I noticed that they had a backlog of over 6,000 inquiries just in the last week or so. So, it is a very exciting online conference, town-hall style, in which everybody from Oregon to Washington to Maine can connect and discuss what are the issues in connection with the information superhighway.

The bottom-line message which I have is that the emergence of the NII con-cept, even though we can not fully define it yet, provides the libraries and infor-mation science community with a wonderful opportunity to be more aggressive and assertive to map out for themselves a national role. But to do that, the LIS community is going to have to seize the turf. What is the turf? I think that the turf is the basic concept of just what the national information assets are. For example, information is a commodity. And we have been hearing the phrase that information is a resource. Is it nothing but smoke? If there is indeed something behind this, then I believe it is a cohesive entity called national information assets. The LIS community can start acting as a lead, helpful community to assert its viewpoints in a way that can really have a national and global impact and influence. Now, how to do that? Well, I think that one way is to use the tools, techniques, and formats that businesses are using. A business format, if you will, for the NII. We have economic reports to the President, we have envi-ronment reports to the President, why don't we have a "national information and knowledge assets" report to the President? Who is going to prepare that report? Well, I would like to respectfully suggest that NCLIS can serve a very important key role here in helping to mobilize and marshal all the data, information, and knowledge communities to prepare such a report. And I would include the infor-mation industry community, statistical community, and the library and informa-tion science community, etc. In such a report, we would try to advance the notion that the NII is predicated on the belief that the national information and knowledge assets are national public treasures that need to be shared by govern-ment and public and private institutions with the public, with the educational community, the business community, and so forth. Now that is the central message which I think is much more easily said than done, quite obviously. I also want to give credit to NCLIS for helping co-sponsor events like this meet-ing, so that at least we have opportunities for radicals like me to raise this kind of essentially political and power question. Again, this is not a technology question. The role which I am suggesting here is to raise the national consciousness to the notion of "national information and knowledge assets." It is essentially a politi-cal and power question. That's why I use the term turf.

I don't think that there is any question on the part of our policymakers here in Washington as to what the historical and traditional roles of libraries and libra-rianship have been in the social and cultural arenas. The problem comes in what should be the roles of the LIS community in the economic arena? We don't have to give up, I think, the one (sociocultural role) to get the other (economic role). I am merely saying that we need to "increase the size of the pie" here and elevate that role in the national consciousness of all countries, not just the United States. We might call the first report something like Libraries Helping America [or Your Country] Work Smarter: The First Annual Report on the State of the National Libraries and Knowledge Infrastructure. And then in this report, we could use other traditional business-like formats. I have indicated in the article examples of other formats such as the balance sheet and profit and loss statement.

So, in summary, I come to the following key propositions:

1. The library and information content professions must seize the initiative for NII design, development, and implementation. Or, at least, as a fall back, become a far more vocal player than they are now. In last week's NTIA Virtual Conference, there were lots of comments from individual librarians making pleas that libraries not be overlooked in this rush to create the information superhigh-way. But, believe me, those pleas are small when considered against the whole. For every voice coming from the library community, there are far more coming from the other communities.

2. Because commercial interests and the information conduit professions have the loudest voice so far, LIS professionals must talk to these groups in a lan-guage which they can understand. It is not enough simply to acknowledge and absorb and stand there saying that everybody knows that libraries have played very important roles in our society. Of course they have. But, we are trying to shift the focus and to strengthen the new economic role.

3. A corporate annual report and other business formats could be used as described in my paper.

4. Strategies and tactics must be bold and targeted to national and interna-tional levels. If Dr. Dave Bender of Special Libraries Association (SLA) were here, I am sure that he would say, "Woody, you know that we have thousands of corporate libraries all across America, and they are helping their parent compani-es use information as economic resource to further the missions and objectives of their respective companies." Of course, that is true. But, I would argue in this case that the sum has to be greater than the individual parts. I think that while admitting to Dave, with all due respect, that our special and corporate libraries are indeed playing important roles in the business and economic arena at the na-tional level, we are still falling short. So I call for the need to raise the national consciousness on the economic role of libraries. There lies the NII opportunities. NCLIS can play a focal role to mobilize the library and information communities. In the last 25 years, I have seen that whenever we have made an attempt to seize aggressively the opportunities, we have been successful. Who is more qualified? I don't think that computer and information systems groups are breaking down the doors to take the leadership role in establishing themselves as the key "con-tent players" in NII. I think that they are very happy in the "conduit position" they are in. This is my own impression, but if the executive directors of those associations were here, they might argue the point. Nor do I see the statistical community breaking down the doors. Nor do I think that data entry people are. So, if we go right down the line, I say it is the library and information community that should play this kind of role.

The NII is a great opportunity. But it is a window that may not stay open for too long. You better believe that there is a lot of turf scrambling going on out there right now by people and professions who are trying to get in the act. It is the people and groups who are most assertive that will get in. I think, frankly, if it takes getting our hands dirty to assume this role, then we need to do that.

Thank you.
 

Q&A_______________

DISCUSSIONS

[Peter Young]

Thank you Woody.

I don't know about you, but this presentation made me excited and tired at the same time. There's nothing like being challenged. But challenged with that agenda listing?

[John Lorenz]

Since we have a politician here, why don't we ask Chris Casey to respond to this concept?

[Chris Casey]

I think there is plenty of room for the information groups to refocus themselves for NII. I think that any politician would like to invite input and suggestions of any appropriate organization.

[Peter Young]

Thank you. A few more comments?

[M. Wali]

National information policy, being very recent, has to be closely tied with legislation. But this new concept, I think, is much much more radical. We have problems in defining the precise role of an agency. Unless there is a role which has already been mapped out in line with the national objectives of a particular country, it would be very difficult for our politicians to accept.

[Richard Hsieh]

The issues that you raised here are interesting. We know businesses, factories, or stores need sufficient capital investment to produce profit. Would you consider the maintenance of human knowledge to be a capital investment, rather than looking on it as a deteriorating asset?

[Woody Horton]

I think it is both. I think data, information, and knowledge (I like to include all three) can be either capitalized or expensed. For example, I think some items should be capitalized, such as the investment in a database. But I think there are other expenses, such as subscriptions to a newspaper or journal, which will probably be expensed. I am not an economist, but in examining the work of some information economists whose works I greatly respect, including that of Bob Hayes, my impression is that it is the context that is the determining factor. Information, like many resources, can be both an asset and an expense, depending on the context in which it is viewed. So I resist in saying that all knowledge has to be treated as a capitalized item rather than an expense item. I think it could be either one.

[Marjorie Hlava]

I guess my question is raised more, not because I am a library or information scientist, because I am not, but it has to do with my years in working with NASA as a systems analyst. And, it is the dialog you have to have between the user of information and the user intermediary, rather than trying to measure the holding of that information. To me in order for this idea to be accepted and affected by the large community there has to be a marriage between the library information specialist and the user of that information, whether they are business concerns or educational institutions. I think it is very important at the outset that you ought to speak the language of the economists, the language of the business community, in order to be able to hook information for users to accomplish and serve other national goals like economic groups, economic developments, raising the standard of education. What is the role of the information going to be there? Not just to tell the individual the independent measures of information treasures and access. There must be specific measures of value for the information.

[Peter Young]

I am reminded a few years ago that the Library of Congress had a GAO (General Accounting Office) audit. One of the Federal auditors came back and said that one of the things which the Library of Congress needed to do is to pin down the value of its collections. I think that is what Woody is calling for. It is an intriguing idea, that this nation has industrial resources and human resources, but we also have intellectual information resources. We don't necessarily translate those resources to dollar values.

[Marinus Swanepoel]

We found that in South Africa in one of the points you raised. The leaders in the profession lacked political clout, and that is even the case in the organizational structures; you often find that the head of library and information services doesn't report to the top president but rather to one of the deputies. This lack of political clout or of prominence has also reflected clearly on the national scene. For example, African National Congresses (ANC) drew up a program for the development of and reconstruction of South Africa, and libraries have a very limited role in that program. I think one of the biggest challenges for us is that the South African LIS community has to be able to find ways to raise its standing so that they can contribute more aggressively.

[Peter Young]

Thank you very much. Passing now are copies of the next speaker's paper. I am reminded of the images on the Western set. They remind me of what Chris was talking about as humble system administrator. I think one of the things which we need to recognize is that Ching-chih Chen has a tremendous amount of humbleness in making the connections she has made to bring us together for this particular event -- like a director setting the stage, realizing that the actors are behind the curtain. In this case the actors are contributors and the audiences, as well as the primary ingredient, the dialog and the discussion.

Our next speaker is Daniel C. Duncan. He is the Senior Adviser for Global and Industry Affairs for Information Industry Association (IIA). Daniel did give me very clear information about himself; he has only been with IIA for 1 year. But he has terrific experience as a lobbyist for West Publishing Company, and in the U.S. West is that notable legal online service that has given its competitors a run for their money. He has also served as legislative director for Congressman Jack Brooks in the House of Representatives, and anyone who has been familiar with telecommunications and information policy issues over the past 15 or 20 years, knows that this name is not insignificant in the policy arena. So let's bring Daniel in for his "Private industry's concern in the GII."

[Daniel Duncan]

Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here today. In many conferences of this kind, I usually expect to be the lone voice on many issues. I am pleased to have already heard a number of them mentioned favorably this morning, which will be a nice parallel to some concerns the rest of you will be getting. I hope that it will not be too controversial, but without controversy we can't have debate. There are some issues which we have to face.