Leading change in information management

Introducing and leading change in any field is a difficult and complex task with no mapped path or certain route that guarantees success. Working in a public and administrative institution rarely offers opportunities for introducing and leading creative and innovative changes. However, my work on various information management tasks gave me a chance to lead change in a number of international organizations for which I worked, discovering new or improved information solutions, products and services. In retrospect, leading change in information management was a sine qua non of my long career and is a major focus of this Context Statement. This Context Statement offers a review of my own public works and achievements during my long professional career in information management. It concentrates on four public works, describing them in chronological order. It defines main influencers, theories, concepts and people that made the greatest impact on my career; evaluates the work performed, the technology used, the results achieved, and the lessons learned. The Context Statement also offers a thematic review of my public works, putting them in the perspective of the dramatically changed world of information management, the global impact of information, the democratisation of scientific and technical information, and the information ethics. The Context Statement concludes that, if we - the information managers - do not lead change and instigate constant innovation and modernization of our field, we will become museum custodians, instead of a leading avant-garde in today’s knowledge economy and the information world in which we live