Competitive intelligence, digital copyright, image database design, Dublin Core meta tags and much more took center stage in this scenario. Our job titles changed along with our job descriptions. Well, that seems to be a pretty clear as far as it goes. But recently information professionals have started to produce, market and sell information. It seems that we've gone beyond the Information Age and entered into the Information Economy.
Information specialists are more involved in commerce than ever before.
The ethical issues involved in selling, repackaging or repurposing data will certainly be critical. The only encouraging word on these issues is that they are being addressed in classrooms, board rooms, libraries and SLA conferences and workshops. I need its publications, regional conferences, management workshops, distance learning seminars, scholarships, but most important of all, I need this network of super smart people who understand the questions involving issues, trends, technology, management, and economics. I'm facing ethical issues on information distribution, professional identity challenges, freedom of access to public records, privacy erosion, collection security, diversity in staff and clients, fee for services, staff empowerment and advancement, software and hardware evaluation. I also suspect that the 21 st century will also have some surprises for me.