Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

We live in a time in which the rate of change is unprecedented. While the nineteenth century saw tremendous innovations in technology, communications and public health that changed our lives during the twentieth century, we are now seeing a global transformation of social organisation. The dramatic technological developments both in information and communications technologies and in biotechnologies will continue to transform our lives but not, in themselves, as profoundly as the nineteenth century clusters of innovation in:- electricity- the internal combustion engine and transportation- chemicals and materials- entertainment, communication and information- health and sanitation [1] Instead, the “Information Revolution ” is accelerating the rate of change as it pushes us faster into the 'Knowledge Economy'. That is, into the emerging world economy in which the greatest asset is intellectual capital, the knowledge which gives one organisation or one nation, or