ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on areas that seem "ripe" for innovation, based on the information behavior literature. In spite of the increasing impact of information on our lives, most of continue to deal with information much as people did decades or even centuries ago. Information literates seem to be an extremely small group—probably only 1 or 2 percent of the population. The strategy designs for the information literate and deals with the development of sophisticated products and systems aimed at increasing the efficiency of the already efficient user. Information literates have gotten by in the past, and will continue to get by in the future, with relatively little help from the designers of systems. Most information services and systems available today are "passive." A wide variety of systems and services are available or under design to support extrapersonal information processing. This has been, and probably will continue to be, the major area of concern in scientific and technical information industry.