My ContentInformation societyDefinitionCriteria of an Information Society Technological criteria Economic criteria Social criteria Political criteria Cultural Criteria Knowledge Management (KM) Knowledge Assets Explicit or formal assets Tacit or informal assets The value of KM
Information society
The Society has created various institutions. These social institutions make a person part of the society. Each institution serves one or few needs of the society. A library is a social institution and it has been created to fulfill all the needs of the society. In the library, the people are exposed to books or a variety of documents that give knowledge, bring to surface one's talent aesthetic talents, stimulate one's intellect, inculcate values and learning skills, provide one with recreation and so on Therefore, of all the institution formed by society it is the library and its modern cognates that are the most potent in meeting the multifarious needs of different users of modern society. A public library provides free service irrespective of status, age, religion, colour our creed, and sex. It may extend service to the neo literates and even to the physically handicapped people.
A society is composed of people working together to achieve common ends and to satisfy common needs. It is a body of individuals that is outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, consisting of different characteristics or condition such as national or cultural identity, social solidarity, etc. It is characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive culture and institutions.
A society is an economic, social or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied multitude of individuals who may or may not be from different ethnic groups. Modern society is heading towards an information society in which the central instrument of change, the force and direction of change are knowledge and information.
All information societies, ancient, medieval or modern, have functioned and prospered on the basis of proper utilization of information and knowledge in their various stages of development.The term information society is said to have been coined in Japan for the first time. The two Japanese cognates - Joha Shakai when normally translated into English means 'Information society'. The American Society for Informatiori Science (ASIS) in 1970 organized its annual meeting around the theme "The information conscious, society" where the concept of information society was explicitly used.
1. Definition
William J. Martin defined information society as "a society in which the quality of life as well as prospects for social change and economic development depends increasingly on information and its exploitation". In such a society living standards, patterns of work and leisure, the education system and the market place are all influenced markedly by advances in information and knowledge. This is evidenced by an increasing array of information intensive products and services that communicate through a wide range of media, many of them being electronic in nature.
According to Blaise Cronin, "an information society is one in which labour has been intellectualized, one in which the expression to earn one's daily bread by the sweat of one's brow sounds decidedly anachronistic". Exploiting in the information sector of the economy is growing fast soon, terms such as information worker, knowledge engineer, idea processor will be as common as weaver, miller, electrician, carpenter, etc.
G.P. Sweeney defined information society as one "in which the creation of economic wealth is based on information and in which key economic activities are enquiring communicating and deciding" for good or ill. Martin is of the view that "the concept of an information society has now gained a fair degree of acceptance". As a concept it is certainly viable.
2. Criteria of an Information Society
William J. Martin has noted the following criteria for the development of information society.
a. Technological criteria
Today's age is the computer age in which computers and telecommunication are behind every other change in the society communication technologies such as tele education, teleconferencing, teleshopping, telecommuting, e-government, e-commerce have converted the would into a global village and its impact can be felt at every level of our society.
b. Economic criteria
This is the age of knowledge in which knowledge capital would predominate over material capital.The internet is fundamentally changing the way the companies operate. The internet is turning the business upside down and inside out. The e-commerce goes far beyond the buying and selling over the internet. The information workers are replacing productive worker as the biggest sector in the economy. Information is turning out as the key economic factor as resource, service, commodity, a source of added value and employment. In the information society most of the information will be cheaper, would occupy less space and can be communicated with greater speed.
c. Social criteria
In information society, information is the enhancer of the quality of life. The information society will be conscious towards the value of information and its use and will become increasingly centred on information handling, processing, storage and dissemination using micro electronic based technologies. Globally the society has got divided into two parts. i.e. information rich society and information poor society.
d. Political criteria
In information society there would be more interaction between the government and the governed through citizens participation by way of electronic polling, their access to public information under the concept of freedom and equality of access to information. There will be better interaction with fellow citizens through wired networks, telephone, tele commencing, ete. The information superhighway will change the whole world.
e. Cultural Criteria
The information society recognizes the cultural value of information through the promotion of information value in the interest of national or individual development.
In an information society, it is said, a majority of the people will spend their time doing tasks which relate to information, expression, gathering, storing, retrieving and disseminating it. People in an information society will manipulate information for the purposes of travel, entertainment, instructions, control and so on.
Knowledge Management (KM)
There is no universal, definition for knowledge management. At its broadest, KM is the " process through which organizations generate value from intellectual and Knowledge based assets."
Information management tries to make the right information available to the right person at the right time through a variety of database driven information applications. Information management tools try to capture the human experience of knowledge through collecting, classifying, disseminating, searching, indexing, and archival power of technology. Information management may well be considered the first wave of KM (and is the still often considered synonymous with KM)
a. Knowledge Assets
b. The value of KM
Knowledge began to be viewed as a competitive asset in the 1980 around the same time that information explosion started becoming an issue. The trend was fueled by the development of IT systems which made it simple to store, display, and archive classified, indexed information. It is important to manage knowledge assets because -
1. Organizations compete increasingly on the base of knowledge (the only sustainable competitive advantage, according to some)
2. Most of our work is information based (and often immersed in a computing environment)
3. Workforces are increasingly unstable leading to escalating demands for knowledge replacement / acquisition.
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