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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a non-regulatory agency within the United States Commerce Department's Technology Administration. NIST's mission is, "to develop and promote measurements, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life". NIST Laboratories conduct research in a variety of physical and engineering sciences that promotes the nation's technology infrastructure. The Information Services Division (ISD) is a tri-part information services organization within NIST's Technology Services that includes the Research Library, the Electronic Information and Publications Group, and the Museum and History Program. This paper centers on the NIST publications program and knowledge management efforts in the publications area. An overview of NIST research focuses on NIST as a producer of standards and measurement related data and information. Included is a description of NIST's major publications and database vehicles and web based information. NIST publication distribution channels and how these channels contribute to open access to science and technology literature and specifically NIST information are discussed. In particular, the paper explains how the integrated efforts of ISD's Knowledge Management functions (Research Library, the Publications Group, and the Museum and History Program) combined with ISD initiatives provide full text and open access to NIST publications. Included is a look at the standards employed to assure high-quality bibliographic information and accessible, compliant, permanent, secure electronic access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation continues to be adopted in Africa, the presumption behind its adoption has been that good information infrastructures exists to guarantee access to information. Applying ideas of information economics, this paper argues that information management has all along undergone neglect in Africa. Using case studies of Botswana, Ireland, Malawi, South Africa and the United Kingdom the paper posits that the adoption of FOI legislation mandates African countries to reverse the neglect. Reversal of the neglect will be achieved by developing good information management infrastructure to cater for variable access to information demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In principle, the emergence of National Information Policy (NIP) as a framework for developing information resources and Institutions was welcomed by most countries in Africa with such a messianic zeal. However most of these countries and particularly those in the Sub-Sahara region were unable to correspondingly match their zeal with concrete efforts aimed at enunciating and implementing the policy. This situation is not unconnected with some mitigating factors and certain development peculiarities of some of the countries, all of which are discussed in the paper. Against the backgrounds of the above factors and peculiarities, most countries in the sub-region suddenly found themselves at a cross-road with the emergence of information society which is typified by the increasing prevalence and convergence of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). Thus the need for these countries to reappraise the concept of NIP to embrace the NICI initiative are discussed in the wider context of national and regional development objectives. The challenges of knowledge age are also articulated in the light of the ways forward for development in Africa. The paper concludes that the alternative to African countries failure to address these challenges will be for them to remain attached to the apron string of donor agencies and countries in perpetuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic Government (e-government) is the use of ICT to provide information and improve the delivery of government services to the citizens using electronic means. In Kenya, e-government is available at http://www.e-government.go.ke/ This shows all government publications contributed, compiled and published by the current 23 ministries. Government information is used for decision-making, budgetary, government policies, poverty eradication and scientific research among others purposes. These multiple purposes have enhanced the need for accurate timely information achievable through e-government. However, the problems of e-government in Kenya include lack of government ICT policy, poor information infrastructure, entrenched graft, digital divide, 'confidential' labeled documents and inadequate human skills. This paper has the objective of looking at e-government as implemented in Kenya and at its efficiency and effectiveness in allowing effective use of government information. It further attempts to draw a comparison between Kenya and other countries that have embraced e-government in the region. It concludes that information infrastructure is the gateway to global access and use of government information by citizens & governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the volume of digital material escalates, creative expression in science, technology, arts, and humanities and social sciences is increasingly embodied in this fragile, ephemeral, and dynamic medium. Its loss will have significant and irreversible effects upon the cultural literacy of future generations. As a result, the U.S. Congress has charged the Library of Congress to lead a national effort to forge an infrastructure to identify, acquire, manage, and preserve important works in digital form through the National Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), legislation passed in December 2000 (PL-106-554). This paper describes our work to date and offers ideas about ways that government can foster partnerships to achieve this important national goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of centuries of political instability, warfare, colonization, socio-economic and other contributory factors, illiteracy is a very serious problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although part of the global village, developing countries in this region are unable to enjoy equal status amongst First World countries, because of high levels of illiteracy. Illiteracy is a major ''obstruction' on the road to the "Information Super Highway". This paper will highlight problems encountered by the 'information-starved',' in their quest for knowledge and self-development. It will show that they are disadvantaged when it comes to accessing information and that copyright laws exacerbate the problem. It will also show that commitment on the part of Governments, non-Government organizations and commercial sectors in this region can help to eradicate illiteracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of infrastructure for library's digital document's telecommunications is one of the most difficult and headache problem, which is lying in front of our librarian. For solving this problem, the author tries to analyze the library's work in this knowledge age. In this paper, the author emphasizes on the topologies of library LAN cabling system, using the PDS system for the library's LAN cabling work, selecting the transmission media for library's electronic document's transportation, and distributing the outlets for library's digital document's transportation. The conclusion is that the librarian should follow the scientific innovations in this knowledge age, otherwise it would be abandoned by the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two studies conducted during 2000-2001 compared how information resources are shared collaboratively through electronic devices between libraries in the US and China. The two studies, presented at the ASIS 2000 Annual conference and 12th NIT International Conference, were the results of collaborative efforts between US and Chinese library researchers. A newly developed International Cooperative Research Method was employed in both the studies and was thought extremely useful in conducting such cross-country work. The research method comprises a combination of five tactical components: Expert Collaboration, Participant Survey, Purposive Comparison, Global Perspective and Remote Scene. Through presenting the results of these cross-country studies, this paper discusses the merits and issues of employing this new cooperative research method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, the National Library is collaborating with the higher education sector as part of a national program to improve the nation's research information infrastructure. These activities have provided a focus for the National Library in its engagement with the university community. Among other things, the National Library has: • worked to digitise research resources, especially those required to support research in the humanities; • developed integrated discovery services such as the national union catalogue and a service providing search access to all Australian university repositories; • actively participated in three research information infrastructure projects; and • worked with partners to develop solutions to the problem of sustaining university repositories to support long term access. One of the research information infrastructure projects is Project ARROW (Australian Research Repositories Online to the World) which is developing a solution for institutional repositories in collaboration with a commercial vendor. The National Library's principal contribution has been to build a national search service covering all Australian institutional repositories, thus improving the discovery infrastructure. In another project, the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR), the National Library is sharing its expertise in digital preservation. Among other things, the Library is helping the project to develop a sound approach to assessing the obsolescence risk of file formats, is advising on a strategy for including preservation metadata in the repositories, and is seeking to influence the future development of open source repository software to make use of preservation metadata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WSIS presently belongs among significant external sources of ideas and suggestions for the development of national library networks, and thus also for the Slovak Library Network. The main methodological significance of this source is that it contains comprehensive and global view of the Information Society development in the world in its major components and in various fields. The practical meaning of WSIS is that it encourages country to formulate its own national policy and strategy for implementing ICT on governmental level. Description of the Library network of the Slovak republic; governmental activities and WSIS; Slovak library network and WSIS; developmental projects oriented to ICT implementation and knowledge society development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the importance of library service advancement for the blind people in the global information society. It explores the commitment of the International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions to information society. It also mentions the response of IFLA to the nees of the print-disabled.

The article offers information about the importance and challenges of digital libraries in the global information society presented at the World Library and Information Congress: 71th IFLA General Conference and Council in Oslo, Norway. It discusses the roles of libraries in the society such as delivering important information, access to information, and maintaining the information infrastructure. It also explores the innovation agenda and eResearch promotion.

Linking CRISs (Current Research Information Systems) and OA (Open Access) Systems brings together systems for managing R&D with systems for providing open access to scholarly publishing - the major visible output of R&D - on the emerging European GRIDs infrastructure. The debate over OA is very active with 'green' (institutional repository self-archiving) and 'gold' (author / institution pays publishing) as competing but also complementary processes. The major publishers are experimenting with 'gold' services while 'green' institutional repositories are growing fast. GRIDs, especially through the NGG (Next Generation GRID) Reports [NGG] has emerged as a vision for a European IT 'surface' now being implemented progressively especially under the auspices of EC DG INFSO F2 to provide easy-to-use access to information and computation. CRISs provide both a context for evaluation of - and understanding the background to - scholarly publication. CRISs also provide a management framework for R&D in institutions from funding agencies through national laboratories to universities, as well as a mechanism for interoperating research and development information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the contribution of UNESCO to the development of libraries. It mentions its Information for All Programme (IFAP) which thought to have been contributed to several UNESCO's objectives such as "education for all." Among of the Programme's effort to reach UNESCO's objectives include the Computerized Documentation System (CDS/ISIS), UNESCO Libraries Portal, and the UNESCO's Free Software Portal.

With the rapid growth of the global information society, the concept of library has evolved to embrace all kinds of information collections, on all kinds of storage media, and using many different access methods. The users of today's information networks and digital libraries, no longer restricted by geographic or spatial boundaries, want to be able to find, retrieve and understand relevant information wherever and in whatever language it may have been stored. For this reason, much attention has been given over the past few years to the study and development of tools and technologies for multilingual information access (MLIA). The tutorial will provide participants with an overview of the main issues of interest in this sector. Topics covered will include: character encoding, specific requirements of particular languages and scripts, localization and presentation issues, techniques for cross-language retrieval, the importance of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work the contribution of Grey Literature to Knowledge Society is demonstrated through a historic overview of its evolution in the last century. The first step is to present some definitions of Grey Literature and then the stages of its development from the beginning of the XX Century to current days. The work also mention some institutions that played a key role in the administration of this type of literature, not omitting some important institutions of Latin America and the Caribbean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]