“Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” The R.D. MacLeod Lecture, 1997

Abstract

Addresses the challenge for the library and information profession ‐ in embracing the emerging global information society and the need to manage the changes that come with this. Considers the historical background of public funded libraries of all kinds and the public service ethos which has sustained them over many generations. This ethos is now being challenged in turn by the concept of information as a marketable commodity rather than a right of citizenship. Notes that the forces of the private sector and the market economy are driving the new concept of information as such a marketable commodity, and that there is a clash of values between the earlier traditions which were led by the public sector, and the current situation, driven by the private sector. The conclusion summarises the significance of both a traditional, book‐based culture and that of information and communications technologies and draws a comparison between these and the two cultures of C.P. Snow’s paper of 1959 (The Rede Lecture).