The prediction, in brief:

People are using the term “universal service,” which is a telecommunications-policy term. What they mean is ensuring access to information … The big question is how to we rethink the idea of the library in this environment. Does it get extended to include service to the home?

Predictor: Kahin, Brian

Prediction, in context:

In a 1993 article for the New York Times, John Markoff quotes Brian Kahin of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Markoff writes:”The convergence of telecommunications and computer technologies creates a set of public-policy questions that range from antitrust issues to whether cable companies must adopt common-carrier obligations. ‘To a large extent the debate is confused,’ said Brian Kahin, director of the Information Infrastructure project at the Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. ‘People are using the term “universal service,” which is a telecommunications-policy term. What they mean is ensuring access to information.’ The development of high-speed computer networks holds the possibility of altering many public institutions, including schools and libraries. ‘The big question is how to we rethink the idea of the library in this environment,’ Mr. Kahin said. ‘Does it get extended to include service to the home?'”

Biography:

Brian Kahin was a coauthor of “Public Access to the Internet,” a 1995 collection of papers on Internet-access issues produced by the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, for which he was founding director. He had helped found the Interactive Multimedia Association in 1988. In the early 1990s, he also was the author or editor of “Building Information Infrastructure (McGraw-Hill, 1992), “The Information Infrastructure Sourcebook” (published by the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project 1993-1995) and “Standards Policy for Information Infrastructure” (with Janet Abbate; MIT Press, 1995). (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)

Date of prediction: October 26, 1993

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: Universal Service

Name of publication: New York Times

Title, headline, chapter name: The Media Business; New Coalition to Seek A Public Data Highway

Quote Type: Paraphrase

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Section D, Page 2, Column 5, Financial Desk

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Meyer, Jennifer Marie