ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the situation with respect to those services and systems which are of direct relevance to the literature of economics. The efficiency of electronic technology is growing exponentially and even faster, causing an almost parallel decrease in operating costs. The massive substitution of automated information processing for manual/mechanical processes will begin independently of official intervention as soon as unit costs of the two technologies will have reached parity towards 1979-1980. Two proposed new international information systems are being studied, one in the field of population and another in the field of economic and social development. The computer programs used to prepare International Labour Documentation are part of a set of general purpose library management, printing and retrieval programs developed by the International Labour Office (ILO), and known as Integrated Scientific Information System. ILO is moving in the same direction with its Development Sciences Information System service, which is, however, just getting started.
