Trend 1: New technologies will both expand and limit who has access to information

Heading to the World Library & Information Congress in Singapore next week? Don’t miss the launch of the IFLA Trend Report on Monday morning 19 August (Session 93: Plenary session), with IFLA President Ingrid Parent and IFLA Secretary-General Jennefer Nicholson.

In December 2011 the IFLA Governing Board set up a Steering Committee to commission a major Trend Report modelling the evolving digital information environment. The IFLA Trend Report is the result of twelve months’ consultation with experts and stakeholders from a range of disciplines to explore and discuss emerging trends in the information environment, before turning the discussion over to libraries.  

We’re going to be giving you a sneak peek at some of the high level trends identified by our experts in the countdown to launch date. The IFLA Trend Report explores five high level trends, mapping likely developments in the information economy and identifying collisions between trends and possible impacts on the services provided by libraries.

IFLA members will be able to sign up to the comprehensive web platform to explore the Trend Report in full from launch date. Details regarding how you can sign up will be made available on Monday 19 August.

Trend 1: New technologies will both expand and limit who has access to information

The ever expanding digital universe is bringing a higher value to information literacy skills. This means those people who don’t possess information literacy skills, basic reading and writing skills, or the technical capacity to access the internet will increasingly face barriers to inclusion. The nature of new online business models will heavily influence who can successfully own, profit from, share and access information in the future.  Governments will take further steps to regulate the flow of information within their borders. Questions posed by the IFLA Trend Report include:

  1. When information is so easy to share – can anyone really own it?

  2. “You don't have permission to access that”: Will your Internet stop at the border?

  3. The world's information at your fingertips – but what can you do with it?

Stay tuned for the launch!

twitterFollow the discussion on twitter at #iflatrends.