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Questions the values and wisdom of those proposing to tackle the global digital divide. Why, for instance, the concern for the digital divide and not the health divide? Questions too the methods for determining and measuring the divide and the naive assumption that the Internet itself can transform the destinies of the digitally poor. What is really at issue is not finding the best way of bringing the Internet to the poor, but finding the best way for the poor to take advantage of the Internet in order to improve their lot.

This paper sets out to offer a holistic perception of the information ecology in which disadvantaged communities of the so‐called third world operate with a view to contribute to overcoming its limitations in a more effective way.

The authors briefly review the major social, economic and cultural characteristics of disadvantaged communities that balance the common place trust in the power of modern information products and infrastructures. Based upon a number of field studies the notion of information needs is reconsidered and combined with concerns for information literacy, social autonomy and the role of indigenous knowledge. The authors then present a number of examples of innovative approaches to the delivery of information services that may support the role of information centers and libraries as change catalyst from within the communities rather than mere providers of ready made information.

To this end, information professionals have to be educated in order to become change agents and consider this role as essential for their practice to be rewarding for themselves and more importantly for the people they serve. There are numerous examples of information services and information professionals who make a difference in the life of their communities against the most severe circumstances. This however requires a radical shift in their value system and operation.

The authors hope that the paper will encourage information professionals and in first place those who educate them to give social responsibility toward disadvantaged communities the same emphasis and priority as alignment with the latest technological artifact or excellence in observance of standards.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss conditions for an effective application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the pursuit of sustainability for cities.

After a brief overview of the possible contribution of ICT, the main findings of the CIBER study of the Google generation are summarised. The limitations and main focus on advanced countries in the present understanding of internet use are stressed. The current state of internet use in Mexico is summarised.

The need for proactive global policies aimed at reducing imbalances between regions and income groups on the one hand and developing and supporting an information culture on the other hand is emphasised.

The paper puts the “Google generation” and technopush discourses into perspective.

…but it is hoped that the arrows fired in Target 2000 will fall somewhere near the target for this new column — the turn of the century, the year 2000. Contributors are invited to focus on a specific topic that falls within the current scope of the journal and speculate on the concerns, changes or challenges that will be experienced over the coming seven year period. However, Target 2000 will also be a ‘floating Delphi’, as contributors may be asked to revise their predictions during the seven years and they will certainly be asked to reexamine them as the new century arrives.

To show how e‐readiness indicators, specifically the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), participate in the work of defining policy problems.

The article critically examines the Networked Readiness Index in terms of its presentation and its underlying model. It relies on an approach to policy analysis that views policy problems as socially constructed.

E‐readiness assessment tools purport to show how ready the nations of the world are to exploit the potential of new information and communication technologies. Yet they do more than that; being actively engaged in constructing policy problems. In the case of the NRI, the problem of the international digital divide is defined in a particular way that privileges certain interests while at the same time legitimatizing its inclusion on the agenda of international organizations as a problem worthy of sustained attention.

The findings of the article suggest a need for alternative indicators that register the voices of a wider range of groups and could therefore create a more inclusive digital divide policy problem.

Little critical (as opposed to technical) analysis of e‐readiness indicators exits in the literature. By focusing on these tools, the article contributes to the debate surrounding the issue of the digital divide.

The basic idea of this chapter is to utilize spiritual information in empirically exploring how its purported source beings view the impacts of such information upon various phenomena. This chapter aims at discovering and describing the most central effect dimensions in this context and, by so doing, at building theoretical constructs. The empirical work was done during 2005–2009 in Finland. Because of the relative novelty of the research topic, an inductive approach was applied. The research data were composed of a representative sample of 62 spiritual texts (printed books and articles, as well as Web and e-mail articles). The chapter examines the discovered categories and their subcategories, shows the most salient connections between them and discusses the findings in the context of previous research. The investigation explored two dimensions: the targets and actuality of the impacts of spiritual information. The impact targets were classified as organisms (human individuals, human communities, extraterrestrials, spirits), things (parts of beings, objects, information, situations), processes (events, practices, life) and spaces (areas, Earth, universe). The actuality of the impacts of spiritual information fell under these categories: desired (implicitly desired, intended, explicitly desired, requisitioned) impacts, real (possible, believed, factual, alternative) impacts, nonexistent (hypothetical, no) impacts, as well as conditional (on supernatural sender, information, humans, situation) and unconditional impacts. This inquiry revealed several new varieties of information impact and even built whole new typologies, because quite little was known about both the targets and actuality of the impacts of information before the present study.

This paper examines the relationship between research into the evaluation of the impact of library and information services, policy making in the field, and professional practice and education. The paper first summarises the background to a recent critical literature review undertaken on behalf of Resource: the Council on Museums, Archives and Libraries. The review was intended to identify any published evidence that Museums, Archives and Libraries are making a contributory impact to developments in the British Government’s key policy areas. Except in the field of learning, little supporting evidence was found. Methodological weakness undermined the validity of much of the related work identified by the review. After considering approaches to ensuring the impact of research on policy making, including a more appropriate publication strategy and greater face‐to‐face dialogue, the paper discusses the attitudes of LIS practitioners towards academic research and the need for closer collaboration. Finally, the paper speculates on some of the implications for LIS educators in developing future researchers better equipped to identify the contribution that libraries make, and more effective in influencing policy makers.