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Unit 3: Place of Library in Dissemination of Information

One effect of social change on the individual is increased social mobility – changes of job and Notes
even of occupation, changes of residence and hence of neighbours, friends and associates, changes
in income and status. Even if none of these apply, our work and leisure environments are
steadily altering. The times are changing.

3.2.2 Context of Information Provision

There is a widely held belief that the development of new information technology will lead to
an all-round improvement in the public availability of information. Access to all kinds of
information, including bibliographic references, factual and numeric data, directory information
and full text, will be enhanced and extended. Furthermore, it is implied that the benefits of this
will be generally distributed: everyone will have the opportunity to take advantage of the
wider access to information which new technology can provide.
Unfortunately, there is no necessary reason why this should be the case. It can be argued more
plausibly that the benefits of any technological advance are likely to be distributed rather
unequally. Under these conditions, any existing unevenness in the distribution of the products
or services, which the technology provides, can be expected to increase. Indeed, the ability of
one group to appropriate the benefits of a particular new technology may lead to an absolute
reduction in the availability of products or services for those groups still dependent on the old
technology. Technological innovation, in other words, takes place within specific institutional,
economic, and political environments, which determine the distribution of the benefits to be
derived from that technology. In the case of information, therefore, it is quite possible that the
development of new technology will only serve to widen the existing distance between the
information rich and the information poor within a particular user community, or perhaps to
change the identities of the rich and poor. This applies not only to individuals, of course, but also
to broader social and functional groups, to those differently situated geographically, to different
types of institutions, to specific countries, and ultimately to the relations between the developed
and underdeveloped worlds.
What is the institutional and economic environment of information provision? As already
noted, Librarians in Information Services (LIS) are mainly subsidized from public and institutional
funds: for few of the services provided is a direct charge levied on recipients. LIS systems
interact with the commercial world of publishers and booksellers and many are now reconciled
to cost-recovery charges to users for interloans and photocopies, but the profession largely
thinks of itself as providing a personal service to particular user communities. However, LIS is
only part of a very much wider ‘information universe’ and this is predominantly a commercial
world.
In social analysis, generally, the processing of information is no longer regarded simply as an
ancillary (though necessary) accompaniment of more basic social activities. It is now seen as a
substantial sector economic activity. For many decades, it has been customary to divide economic
activity into three sectors: primary (extractive and agricultural industry), secondary (manufacture)
and tertiary (services). The services have included transport, utilities (power, gas, electricity,
and water), repair, personal services, wholesale, and retail trade. The proportion of economic
activity devoted to the services sector has steadily grown in industrial societies.

Notes More recently, the procession of information has been identified as a quaternary
sector.

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