In the midst of the current information revolution, buzz phrases such as “global information infrastructure”, “information beyond boundaries” and “global information reach” seem to permeate society. Therefore, it is with some surprise that one finds relatively few books that provide an in‐depth, global perspective on the information revolution. World Information Report, 1997/98 by UNESCO is a publication that helps fill this void and comes to the rescue of those people who hunger for facts and figures on the state of information in different parts of the world. The target audiences are “non‐specialists and decision‐makers and the public at large”, yet people in the various information professions should also find the book interesting and useful.
The work is organised into three parts: part 1 presents a region‐by‐region survey of the realities of libraries, information and information services, and archives; part 2 describes the major components of the information infrastructure, such as computer, multimedia, telecommunication, and Internet technologies; and part 3 examines issues and trends associated with these information technologies, including copyright, book publishing, preservation and international cooperation.
Each chapter is written by a scholar and/or researcher from one of 17 countries. As the editors requested, most of the chapters are replete with statistics and bibliographies, which may be utilised by readers as a starting point for further study on a related topic. Overall, the statistics are interesting and understandable, but the quality of statistical source citations is uneven from chapter to chapter. In a few chapters, the manner in which the information is presented sometimes confuses rather than clarifies an issue. As a case in point, the authors make a statement concerning US library legislation (p. 102): “A five‐year re‐authorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act was not enacted by the House of Representatives (Henderson, 1995)”. This leaves one with the impression that the Paperwork Reduction Act was never re‐authorised, when in fact it was, in 1995.
UNESCO has made selected chapters of the book available on its Web site (see the URL above). The chapters can be viewed and downloaded in an Adobe PDF format free of charge. These are the authors’ original texts without any editing. UNESCO states the hope that this will “raise the interest of potential readers for the edited version”. I believe that individuals will find this publication worthwhile, and I hope that there will be similar publications from UNESCO in the future.
