In Amanda Click, Sumayya Ahmed, Jacob Hill, John Martin. Library and Information Science in the Middle East and North Africa. Sage, 2016.

Chapter 8 Correlating Information Centers to Emerging Knowledge-Based Economies

Patricia A. Wand

Data is found in unexpected places

Nothing seems more basic than soil but even ‘simple’ soil contains valuable data. Only when the soil is collected, though, and the data is extracted and analyzed, does the data about something as simple as soil become available to inventors and researchers.

Between 2007 and 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey collected 5,000 bags of soil, one every 600 square miles from all regions of the lower 48 states. The headline reads: “U.S. soil survey helping researchers dig into nature’s mysteries.” The article announces a project begun in 2001 and discusses the three-year effort to gather soil samples across the U.S. The analysis report, leading to a “snapshot of minerals and chemicals in the ground,” was made available in 2013.

The soil data is already being used to solve murder mysteries, map organic carbon and nitrogen levels in certain regions, track acid rain damage to forests, and locate black carbon residue from both ancient forest fires and modern day industrial smokestacks. Even questions about climate change may be partially answered by studying soil (Smith, 2014, A4).

Introduction

What is the relationship between the number of information centers in a country and its ability to become a knowledge-based economy? Data forms the underpinnings of a knowledge-based economy and without it researchers can’t find answers to questions, citizens can’t know about their government, students can’t learn about their country, scholars can’t generate new knowledge, creative minds can’t innovate; and the rich, cultural resources of a country remain invisible to the world. This chapter focuses on developing sustainable, knowledge-based economies in the Arabian Gulf and examines the role of information centers in those economies. The phrase ‘information center’ refers to any location or repository where information is collected, described, organized, stored, preserved and disseminated; examples are documentation and research centers, digital libraries, archives, libraries, museums, historical centers, archaeological or World Heritage sites. The discussion first lays out the four pillars of a knowledge economy as defined by the World Bank and compares the Knowledge Economy Index for the Gulf States. Expanding the framework to another metric, the study compares the number of information centers in each of the countries and correlates that number with its population. The comparison of information centers to size of population is proposed as a measure of the degree to which a country is prepared to contribute as a knowledge economy. The chapter covers the functions of information centers and the value of networking centers, and offers a few cultural considerations. The paper concludes with a case for a developing country to gather information about its own residents, culture and landmass.

Foundations of Knowledge-Based Economies

Knowledge-based economies are those societies that derive a large portion of their export income from services they provide rather than from tangible goods they deliver to the world. This paper focuses on the Gulf States, many of which are aspiring to diversify their mineral-based economies and become service and knowledge-based economies. As developing countries shift their base in the global economy from natural resources and agriculture to industry and, increasingly, to knowledge-based services, questions arise regarding factors that lead to economic success in knowledge environments. Knowledge and innovation have played a crucial role in development from the beginnings of human history. But with globalization and the technological revolution of the last few decades, knowledge has clearly become the key driver of competitiveness and is now profoundly reshaping the patterns of the world’s economic growth and activity. Both developed and developing countries should therefore think, with some urgency, about their future under a [knowledge economy] heading (World Bank Institute, 2007, p. ix).

Furthermore, the World Bank (2007) points out, “…because their institutions are weak, many developing countries are struggling to find ways to produce relevant knowledge and transform it into wealth, as well as to adapt and disseminate existing knowledge for their development” (p. ix). Much has been written about the information and communication technology infrastructure and the capacity within each of the countries to meet demand in delivering information electronically (Burkhart, Older, & Defense Research Institute, 2003; Calhoun, Drummond, & Whittington, 1987; Hundley et al., 2001). There is wide-spread recognition of the role of education and many countries are investing in their human capital to increase the skill sets that lead to employment and higher productivity in the service sector (Cassidy, 1990). But less visibility is given to the importance of data-gathering and of information centers and their roles in the infrastructure of knowledge economies. Knowledge itself is being put to work to accelerate and deepen the development process and is a major resource for generating wealth and jobs. All types of knowledge, including indigenous and the most traditional, form a ‘world bank’ of intellectual capital, but only if they are recorded, preserved and utilized.

2 Four Pillars Provide the Framework for a Knowledge-Based Economy

Researchers at the World Bank focused on factors leading to success in knowledge-based economies and produced a report that serves as a theoretical and practical guide to this discussion (World Bank Institute, 2007, p. 27). Four pillars undergird a knowledge economy:

1. Political and economic systems are stable and credible The government is stable and the macroeconomic system includes incentives for developing business, competing fairly in the market place and complying with regulatory policies. The environment is conducive to risk-taking. Citizens respect and engage in the institutions that govern their political and social lives (Government of Qatar Planning Council, 2007, p. 14). 2. A modern, reliable infrastructure of telecommunications and information technology is established High-tech, high-speed infrastructure of information technology and telecommunications can process, store and deliver information when it is needed. Policies and legal frameworks exist to protect its users; professionals and skilled workers design and maintain it. A variety of stakeholders are mobilized to assure success of this pillar: government, business, individual users, skilled personnel, telecommunication and information service providers, to name a few (Government of Qatar Planning Council, 2007, p. 34). 3. Labor force is educated and skilled A well-educated work force is critical for productivity, creativity and disseminating knowledge effectively. The work force has diverse skills and is open to learning. “Education is a fundamental enabler of the knowledge economy” and improving the quality of education at every level is a priority (Government of Qatar Planning Council, 2007, p. 20). 4. Effective innovation system protects, fosters and supports creativity, innovation and intellectual freedom Firms, research centers, universities, and policies are part of a broad, vibrant sector that collects data and makes knowledge available to support learning and research. The system uses existing knowledge to develop the country on all levels and generates new knowledge for the global information exchange. Information centers are key to this pillar. According to the Government of Qatar Planning Council (2007): The innovation system plays an important role in acquiring, adapting, and disseminating knowledge… . The actors of the innovation system include private enterprises, universities, research institutes, consulting firms, think- tanks, and others. The innovative performance of a country depends to a large extent on how these actors relate to each other as elements of a broader system e.g. in the form of joint R & D, personnel collaboration, cross- patenting, licensing of technology, etc. (p. 28).

The World Bank depicts the inter-relationship of the four pillars in a Boolean diagram (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Four interactive pillars of Knowledge Economies

Source: World Bank Institute (2007), Building Knowledge Economies p.27

At the bottom of the diagram and underpinning all is the first or foundation pillar: the economic and institutional regime. The other three pillars are formed and sustained by stable government institutions and economic systems that are consistent and in place over time. Sitting on top of the government / economic foundation is the information technology and telecommunications infrastructure, which includes the electronic hardware and software that delivers information but does not include the information itself nor the knowledge generated from information. And on top of both are the third and fourth pillars: education of the populace and an innovation system. Education emphasizes high levels of literacy and strong schools from pre-K through graduate education as well as opportunities for life-long learning. The education sector is closely related to its partner pillar, the innovation system, which is the focus of the remainder of this paper. The innovation system pillar encompasses the data, information, and the intellectual content upon which learning, knowledge, innovation and creativity are based. The World Bank measures the health of the innovation system in large part by its output (i.e., the research that is conducted within a country and the country’s scholarly output). This study also considers the input – the availability of basic information and accumulated knowledge in information centers – necessary for research and new knowledge to be generated.

4 Emerging Knowledge Economies in the Gulf

Using this theoretical backdrop as a lens, the study focuses on eight of the nine nation states that surround the Arabian / Persian Gulf or occupy the Arabian Peninsula; namely, Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.1 All countries are developing in various ways and several are already emerging knowledge-based economies. The World Bank Institute, using the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM), has formulated the Knowledge Economic Index to evaluate the extent to which an environment in a country or region is ready for knowledge to be used effectively for economic development. (Table 1).

Table 1. Knowledge Economy Index (KEI) for eight Gulf countries, comparing 1995 and 2011

Pillar 1 Pillar 2 Economic Pillar 3 Pillar 4 Knowledge Information Incentive Economy and and Innovation Index (KEI) Communicatio Country Institutional Education System n Technology Regime

1995 2011 1995 2011 1995 2011 1995 2011 1995 2011

Bahrain 7.85 8.16 7.96 7.07 9.81 8.7 8.61 8.81 5 8.06

Iran 4.35 4.31 0.74 1.11 5.56 7.22 5.85 5.41 5.28 3.52

Kuwait 6.16 7.02 6.48 6.11 7.22 8.52 3.91 5.67 7.02 7.78

Oman 6.62 5.83 8.52 7.48 7.04 6.67 5.38 3.61 5.56 5.56

Qatar 6.05 6.7 8.15 5.83 6.3 8.52 3.63 7.74 6.11 4.72

Saudi Arabia 6.6 5.95 5.93 4.72 8.33 7.41 7.53 5 4.61 6.67

United Arab Emirates 7.61 7.79 7.41 8.61 9.26 8.89 6.83 5.59 6.94 8.06

Yemen 1.83 2.17 3.15 1.78 0.74 4.26 0.98 0.96 2.44 1.67

The Knowledge Economy Index (KEI) is an aggregate index calculated from the average of normalized performance scores of a country in all four pillars.2 The score is based on comparative performance and the variables are

1 Iraq is not included because recent data regarding all components of this study were not available for Iraq. 2 For more background on the Knowledge Economy Index, see World Bank Institute (2007), Building Knowledge Economies, pp. 23 – 32.

5 normalized on a scale from 0 to 10 (10 being the most desirable) relevant to the four possible comparison groups. A basic scorecard of 14 variables is used to calculate the KEI and is derived from a total of 148 sources that factor into the scores of the four pillars. Table 1 offers a comparison between the 1995 scores and ‘recent’ scores from data released between 2005 and 2011. Between 1995 and 2011, the KEI increased for Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia and decreased for the other countries. If a country performs worse over time on a certain normalized variable, this may be because it actually has lost ground in absolute terms, or because it improved slower than its comparative group. Looking beyond the KEI itself, the scores in the innovation pillar increased for Iran, Qatar and Yemen. While the scores in some countries have gone down during a time when those countries are improving their knowledge infrastructure, it may be because the scores of other countries around the world have risen more quickly. The factors of particular importance in the scorecard for the innovation system pillar are: • Number of researchers in research and development (R & D), per million population

• Patent applications granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, per million population

• Number of scientific and technical journal articles from the country, per million population (World Bank Institute, 2007, p. 29)

• Amount of money invested annually in research by the government.

These are quantitative measures that do not address the quality of the factors being counted (e.g., the output of researchers counted, the effectiveness and practicality of the patents, the significance of the journal articles in their fields and the productivity stimulated by the money invested annually in research). Those qualitative factors do not figure into the scorecard for the innovation system leading to the KEI and hence are not addressed in this paper.

Historic Look at Knowledge and Data Centers

Knowledge emerges when human creativity builds on data or facts or figures; otherwise known as information. Human creativity generates innovations to solve problems and make things work better. Creativity occurs in all aspects of the human endeavour (e.g. artistic renderings, music compositions, scientific explanations, technological improvements and entertaining moments). Historically over millennia, information centers have evolved because political leaders and nations want to preserve the records of society and the knowledge it creates and they decide to systematically promote learning and research. Information and recorded knowledge, once gathered, classified, described, organized and preserved, reside in centers that support government functions, business development, artistic creativity, learning and the generation of new knowledge. Information centers increase in cultures where governments are stable, public policies are in place to promote universal education, priority is given to

6 collecting data about the country and its population, residents are encouraged to participate in government and where research productivity feeds economic, social and political development. Innovation and creativity are dependent upon a web of interconnected information hubs that store and disseminate data just in time for an inventor to solve a knotty problem or to inspire a scholar to write the seminal article.

Different Types of Information Centers

Data centers, digital libraries, documentation and research centers, archives, libraries, and museums have one thing in common; they all collect information and create metadata to aid in organizing and retrieving data. “Metadata” literally is ‘data about data,’ coming from Greek and Latin words, meta and data. Metadata describes the intellectual content and is used to retrieve it within an information package. Metadata may be in the form of keyword descriptors; a citation with author, title, publisher, date, etc.; an abstract; a classification symbol; a footnote or endnote. Primarily information centers distinguished themselves by the format of the information they collect, which also dictates their names (e.g., data center, archive, library, museum, archaeological site). Digital libraries is a term often used today but technically, every contemporary information center must be digital, at least in part. Examples of information packages or formats are bits and bytes in the computer world, books, sound recordings, films and videos, text-based reports, periodicals and newspapers, artifacts from archaeological sites, microfilm and microfiche. Even archaeological and World Heritage sites are information centers in that they hold the data of ancient societies and preserve the context of lost cultures. Archaeological sites store information about a society but the information may not be totally organized and made retrievable yet; it may be unprocessed facts and figures that are without metadata. In that way, an archaeological site is similar to the raw data collected in a population census. The facts and figures are recorded but they have not yet been analyzed and made available in comprehendible ways for further use. All information centers need skilled professionals – archaeologists, archivists, librarians, researchers, statisticians, information professionals – to analyze and make the content retrievable and to preserve it for learners and scholars. Most information centers are two-way distribution points. In the 21st century, the metadata created by these centers is digital and increasingly part if not all of the content is digital and can be distributed electronically. By gathering and collecting local data and knowledge, information centers provide unique sources to researchers and practitioners inside and outside the region. And, conversely, they bring the latest research to local users and scholars.

Information Centers as Indicators of Preparedness

Interestingly, the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) developed by the World Bank is silent on the existence, role or importance of information centers per se in the infrastructure supporting research and innovation. Access to information by entrepreneurs, researchers, scholars and students is essential in all disciplines and in every enterprise, industry and in the arts. The importance of information in development has been noted by a few scholars. For example, thirty years ago El Fathaly and Chackerian (1983)

7 emphasized the important role of reliable data in the administration and development of Arab nations. But beyond a few references in scholarly research, the concept has not been widely discussed in the international development field nor incorporated into measures of political and economic progress. This chapter is predicated on an assumption that the number of information centers is one of the indicators of a country’s preparedness to support a knowledge-based economy. More information centers collecting data means more information and knowledge can reside in more places and thus more people can access them. One challenge in examining information centers globally is the availability of statistics. No single international agency collects statistics about information centers and those that do so, traditionally record statistics about libraries and museums but not about archives, documentation centers, data centers, archaeological sites, etc. Statistics about the number of libraries and museums in each country are collected by several entities including the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), UNESCO Institute for Statistics, OCLC and various publishers of reference sources.3 A second challenge is ascertaining the quality of the collections and services offered by the libraries and museums that are counted. The quality issue falls outside the scope of this paper even as the author acknowledges that libraries and museum, evaluated among themselves, operate within a wide spectrum of quality measures. Looking more closely at the number of information enters in the Gulf countries, Table 2 shows a hug range in the availability of information centers among the eight countries.

Table 2. Number of Information Centers (Libraries & Museums), Gulf Countries

TOTAL Information Academic, Centers Public, Special, (Libraries plus National Museums) Country Libraries Museums

Bahrain 25 3 28

Iran 4,476 112 4,588

Kuwait 52 4 56

Oman 21 12 33

Qatar 21 7 28

3 Source for library and museum statistics: OCLC’s Global Library Statistics. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from http://oclc.org/global-library-statistics.en.html. School libraries, of particular importance in the education pillar, are not included in this study primarily because of lack of reliable data http://oclc.org/global-library- statistics.en.html.

8 Saudi Arabia 111 5 116

United Arab Emirates 105 14 119

Yemen 12 12 24

Iran has by far the largest number of information centers at 4,588 and Yemen the least at 24. A bar chart (Figure 2) helps compare the number of information centers ― multi-type libraries and museums ― for which there is data in the Gulf countries.

Figure 2. Comparing number of Information Centers, Gulf Countries

4,588

Source: OCLC’s Global Library Statistics. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from http://oclc.org/global-library-statistics.en.html.

This study now looks at the population of each country and correlates that to the number of people per information center (i.e., the aggregate of libraries and museums). Table 3 gives the numbers for populations and information centers, enabling the correlation to be made, and further verifies a diverse information landscape in the region. Country population numbers are taken from The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014).

Table 3. Number of People per Information Center, Gulf Countries

Persons per TOTAL Information Information Center Country Population Centers

Bahrain 1,314,000 28 46,929

Iran 80,841,000 4,588 17,620

9 Kuwait 2,742,000 56 48,964

Oman 3,219,000 33 97,545

Qatar 2,123,000 28 75,821

Saudi Arabia 27,345,000 116 235,733

United Arab Emirates 5,629,000 119 47,303

Yemen 26,052,000 24 1,085,500 Source: Population data from The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014). Information centres data from OCLC’s Global Library Statistics. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from http://oclc.org/global-library-statistics.en.html. Number of People per Information Centre is a calculated metric based on population and information centres.

In this metric, the lower the number of people per information center the more favorable is the environment for providing access to information. Conversely, higher numbers mean more people compete for fewer information centers. The number of people per information center in the Gulf States ranges from 17,600 in Iran to one million in Yemen, with a cluster formed by three countries: Bahrain at 46,900, United Arab Emirates at 47,300 and Kuwait at 48,900. A bar chart (Figure 6) illustrates the range in the number of people per information center from one country to another.

Figure 6. Persons per Information Center, Gulf Countries

Source: Number of People per Information Centre is a calculated metric based on population and information centers. Population data from The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014). Information centers data from OCLC’s Global Library Statistics. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from http://oclc.org/global-library-statistics.en.html.

10 Broadening the comparison, Table 7 includes two smaller Western countries, Finland and Ireland, where knowledge economies have been developing over the past several decades. Statistics for the United States are also given, thereby looking at another mature knowledge-based economy and linking this discussion to the box above entitled “Data is found in unexpected places.” Collecting information and making it available through public, special and academic libraries, archives and museums were activities promoted by the founders of the United States since the18th century.

Table 4. Comparing Gulf Countries to select Western Knowledge-based Economies regarding the number of people per information center

Academic, Public, TOTAL Persons per Special, Information Information National Museums Country Population Centers Center Libraries

Bahrain 1,314,000 28 46,929 25 3

Iran 80,841,000 4,588 17,620 4,476 112

Kuwait 2,742,000 56 48,964 52 4

Oman 3,219,000 33 97,545 21 12

Qatar 2,123,000 28 75,821 21 7

Saudi Arabia 27,345,000 116 235,733 111 5 United Arab Emirates 5,629,000 119 47,303 105 14

Yemen 26,052,000 24 1,085,500 12 12

COMPARE

Finland 5,269,000 1,366 3,857 587 779

Ireland 4,833,000 1,818 2,658 1,629 189 United States 318,892,000 36,334 8,777 21,723 14,611 Source: Population data from The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014). Information centers data from OCLC’s Global Library Statistics. Retrieved May 21, 2014 from http://oclc.org/global-library-statistics.en.html. Number of People per Information Centre is a calculated metric based on population and information centers.

11

In the comparative group, the number of people per information center in Finland, Ireland and the U.S.A. ranges from 2,700 (Ireland) to 8,800 (U.S.). In these Western countries, there are fewer people per information center than one finds in the Gulf States. Again, the number of people per information center is an indicator of the degree to which residents in a country have ready access to information, either local or global, through physical locations and/or electronic means.

Information Centers in the Gulf

Examples of information center development in the Gulf are numerous and varied. Libraries and museums abound in Iran where two libraries, the Library, Museum and Document Center of Iran Parliament and the National Library of Iran (NLI), are among the largest. A unique collection dating to 974 AD is held in the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi, adjoining the Shrine of Imam Reza. Digitization projects are underway in information centers like the historic Library of Ayat Allah Marashi Najafi in Qum with a collection of unique books and manuscripts in Persian, Arabic and Turkic languages. In Saudi Arabia in November 2006, the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh, under the auspices of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, founded the Arabic Union Catalog to collect in one database the metadata describing Arabic materials in collections around the world. The Qatar National Library, arising from Dar Al Kutub Qatar public library founded in 1962, announced in 2009 its plan for a state-of-the-art facility with a multi-function operational mission to serve as the National Library, a University and Research Library and a Metropolitan Public Library. In the United Arab Emirates, governments of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah are growing public library systems within each Emirate. In Abu Dhabi the National Centre for Documentation and Research collects material covering the history of the region, acquires material pertaining to the country’s founding in 1971, builds the National Archives and manages an oral history project to capture Bedouin and local stories before they disappear. The Juma Al Majid Center for Culture and Heritage in Dubai was founded by a private business man who saw the need in 1989 to begin collecting material for a public library.

Relevant Cultural Considerations

The people in the Gulf States, like people in many developing nations, have a rich tradition of storytelling in which stories and local knowledge are passed orally through generations. A tradition of storytelling means oral expressions and creative art and design are widely practiced but not recorded. These local societies have elaborate and valuable heritages that could be captured, thus preserving indigenous knowledge and making it accessible to the world. In this age of globalization, many of these unique and precious stories are already being lost. When cultural heritage is transmitted orally and not committed to text, when government records are not recorded locally and when business transactions are few and simple, there is little need for archives, libraries or repositories. With the notable exception of Iran with its 4,588 libraries and museums, most societies in the Arabian Gulf have traditionally not built libraries, archives or museums in large numbers and hence along with improving their education and research

12 efforts, they must address collecting the intellectual heritage and data about their residents, enabling that information to become a more recognizable and accessible component of their innovation infrastructures. Government control over information may be a determining factor in the type and number of information centers in some countries. By policy, some governments prohibit access to certain kinds of information because they fear political dissent, religious fanaticism, moral decadence or open dialog of controversial topics. A certain level of trust in people’s ability to discern fact from fiction and to hone critical thinking skills must be assumed if information is freely accessible.

Types of Data Needed for Knowledge-Based Economies

Writing about the innovation pillar, the World Bank calls it “a system of organizations that can tap into global knowledge to assimilate and adapt it, as well as create local knowledge.” (World Bank Institute, 2007, p. 27). This last point, “create local knowledge,” is a fundamental component of this study and worthy of emphasis. The unique characteristics of the developing region, whether it is the Middle East, Asia, Africa or the Americas, must be preserved even as the region participates in the global marketplace.

Data about countries is unavailable to local users, domestic and international researchers and to the entire world if those countries have limited information centers. Whether the data are from the natural or social sciences or from the humanities, information about the countries is invisible to the world if it has not been collected locally, thus plugging them into the world-wide knowledge loop. For developing nations, the value of investing in information centers may not be readily apparent nor easily articulated to decision makers. The politicians and scientists making those decisions, however, are often the ones aspiring to build a knowledge-based society that can sustain itself, become more attractive to foreign business investors and compete in the world economy. Hence, convincing those leaders to support data gathering and information center building is essential. In the field of international development, scholars and activists alike are advocating for countries themselves to take charge of their development programs so that the projects reflect local culture, engage the people in meeting their own needs and are sustainable over time (Easterly, 2007). Investing in knowledge capital and the infrastructure for research, including public policy that affect research, are being mentioned in the mainstream development literature (de Haan, 2009; Sachs, 2006). But how is a country able to design its development projects if it is without local data to inform its leaders of what is actually happening on the ground and to provide benchmarks on which they can measure progress? Ideally to enter the global knowledge-based economy, a country must: • Record birth and death data for each resident / citizen

• Collect census and statistical data about its population

• Commit to open government

• Record laws and make them accessible to everyone

13 • Record judicial decisions and make them accessible to everyone

• Collect and preserve local history, stories, original artifacts and master copies

• Establish metadata and classification systems that make sense to the region while meeting international standards

• Work locally and collaboratively among information professionals

• Digitize artifacts to disseminate the content

• Develop cooperative arrangements among data centers, archives, libraries and museums in the region.

Convincing decision makers to fund information centers is part of the challenge. Sharing resources among stand-alone information centers is a longer- term effort that in some situations is counter to cultural values but is part of the innovation pillar of a knowledge-based economy.

Conclusion

Briefly, we have discussed the four pillars of a knowledge-based economy, the role of information centers in innovation systems, the importance of collecting local data to inform the world of regional cultures, and information centers as two-way distribution points. In closing, then, four pillars provide the framework for a knowledge-based economy 1. Stable, credible, respected political and economic systems 2. A modern, reliable infrastructure of telecommunications and information technology 3. An educated, skilled, flexible labor force 4. An effective innovation system, including firms, research and information centers, universities, and policies. Returning to the opening question: What is the relationship between the number of information centers in a country and its ability to become a knowledge-based economy? The study compares the number of two types of information centers (i.e., libraries and museums) that presumably collect and disseminate information locally, and correlates that number with its population size as one measure of the degree to which a country is educating and preparing its residents to contribute through creativity and innovation to a knowledge economy. Information hubs and knowledge economies are inextricably linked but decision makers who aspire to building knowledge-based economies may not immediately see that relationship. Even scholars themselves may carry out their research without giving a second thought to the organizational infrastructure that keeps information at their fingertips or makes it available to them upon request. Some may argue that the widespread use of the Internet decreases the need for information centers. On the contrary, information centers are important sources of data to Internet users. The fact that information can be so readily

14 shared through electronic transmittal using the Internet actually increases the demand for reliable, well-organized and retrievable information about every country and region. If an area of the world is not gathering data about itself and its cultures, the society remains uninformed about itself, and the region and its people remain invisible to the world even though the Internet gives the illusion of being a comprehensive source of information. The challenge to researchers, archivists, librarians and information professionals in the 21st century is to convince the public and private sector stakeholders in evolving economies of the essential role played by information centers. A two-way information exchange is essential for the innovation system in a global, knowledge-based economy.

References

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