Information Availability and Accessibility: The Challenge of the Emerging Information Society

Abstract

Throughout history, any period of intellectual progress has been marked by technical advance which in turn has led to significant growth in information. However, as the application of each technology becomes widespread, the user's ability to deal with information outputs reaches a breakdown point, and new technologies are developed to introduce new levels of control and organization to improve accessibility to stored knowledge and records. Although there is much talk of the information society, it is only when information is available and accessible that we can experience its profound effect on society. The paper examines some of the common storage media on which information is stored and the need to make it more accessible.