2. Guest editorial -- by Martin McGreal


Last month in his editorial, Dr Parker Rossman said, "Humanity must find a way to enable every...person to earn a decent living [and this is in no way] possible except through a global electronic education system." This echoes the Canadian Library Association's position statements on Information and Telecommunications Access and on Intellectual Freedom which state respectively: "Access to information and telecommunications network services should be available and affordable to all..." and "It is the responsibility of all libraries to guarantee and facilitate access to all expressions of knowledge and intellectual activity...."

It is clear librarians sense they have an obligation to act in the networked environment. Indeed, the traditional role of the library must be changed fundamentally if it is to survive at all, let alone play any role in a networked community. For no longer is the library a monastic depository of knowledge, essential in and of itself as a sole access point to learning. In an age of heterogeneous distributed databases, knowledge is everywhere. To evolve its established role and continue to participate in society, a library must be a "node". It must serve local communities through these vast networks, and it must offer access to global electronic resources. Such activity, especially by public libraries, will ensure that every citizen has the capacity and means to pursue his/her education through every means whenever and wherever necessary. Indeed, if public libraries don't accept this responsibility, what public institution will? It is the natural evolution of their traditional function.

The beauty of the network is that it is an all in one tool that works. Once a library offers access to resources, it immediately offers access to everything the network has to offer, including educational instruction, video-conferencing and email. Information access is the key to the library's role in an egalitarian society.

Libraries providing access to networked, computerized information implies a number of things. At the institutional level it means demonstrating a commitment to open architectures and standards which support access to library catalogues and databases via the Internet; it also means possessing the vision to provide documentation and learning -- content -- electronically and in formats which facilitate access. Finally, it means having the resolve to adapt and evolve with the networked environment: accepting the challenge.

Providing access also implies putting pressure on decision makers in government at all levels to provide the information their departments compile in a timely, accurate and concise manner and to formulate policies which facilitate public access to information. To return to Dr. Rossman's original thread, librarians aren't going to save the planet, but they certainly have a role to play -- and they are well situated to play it -- in promoting equal access to networks and information. Providing information access to all is one step in ensuring that society doesn't divide along the lines of those who have access and those who do not.


Martin McGreal, MLIS McGill University


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URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/edit52.htm

August, 1995


GLOSAS NEWS was orinally posted to the WWW at URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/cont.htm by Tina Evans Greenwood, Library Instruction Coordinator, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado 81301, e-mail: greenwood_t@fortlewis.edu, and last updated May 7, 1999. By her permission the whole Website has been archived here at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi from July 10, 2000 by Steve McCarty in Japan.