Public libraries and public interest groups … have argued that basic government-generated information should be made available directly, without adding value, to the user, either for free or at the cost of documentation. Given that the government has already incurred the costs of creating and processing the information for governmental purposes, the economic benefit to society is maximized when government information is publicly disseminated at the cost of dissemination to both end users and value-added redistributors … Internet dissemination may help to explore opportunities for reconceptualizing the kind as well as the form and delivery of information of broad public interest, allowing the government, commercial providers, and the public to move beyond the form and content of “government information” based on traditional printed packages.
Predictor: National Research Council
Prediction, in context:In 1994, the NRENaissance Committee, appointed by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, produced a special report titled “Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond.” Among the committee members were Internet pioneers Leonard Kleinrock, David Clark, David Farber, Lawrence Landweber and Robert Kahn. The committee’s goal was to “study issues raised by the shift to a larger, more truly national networking capability.” Among its statements about the blossoming of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) is this:”The treatment of government-generated information offered through commercial services illustrates various tensions – there has been an ongoing debate in the library, publishing, and consumer advocacy communities about how and by whom information collected or produced by the government should be made available. Some of this debate occurs in conjunction with a broader movement to realize electronic libraries. The research and education communities may have special claims to easy, affordable access to government information … Such companies as Mead Data Central and WestLaw have made a profitable business of packaging and enhancing legal and other information originating in the government for resale. They have maintained that adding value to information should be done in the private sector, rather than by government, because of the opportunities for promoting competition, the concern that government should not be in the value-adding business (e.g., data interpretation, analysis, and other enhancements), and the concern that government control of the information it generates could result in a monopoly over information made available to the public … Public libraries and public interest groups, with the agreement of the information industry, have argued that basic government-generated information should be made available directly, without adding value, to the user, either for free or at the cost of documentation. Given that the government has already incurred the costs of creating and processing the information for governmental purposes, the economic benefit to society is maximized when government information is publicly disseminated at the cost of dissemination to both end users and value-added redistributors … Internet dissemination may help to explore opportunities for reconceptualizing the kind as well as the form and delivery of information of broad public interest, allowing the government, commercial providers, and the public to move beyond the form and content of ‘government information’ based on traditional printed packages.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond
Title, headline, chapter name: Flow of Information
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://stills.nap.edu/html/rtif/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney