Radio stations, promoting their informational programming, call it the information edge. Philosophers, engineers, librarians, teachers alike can be heard describing the times as the information age.
Information is part of the life-blood of the industrialized nations of the world.
The possession of it and the zeal with which it is organized and exploited puts Japan ahead of West Germany, France ahead of Great Britain, Canada ahead of Italy. No longer is it the fastest gun in the West who will save the day but the one with the fastest update. For that and a thousand and one other reasons, Statistics Canada is at your service. The information offered is diverse as teachers' salaries and soft drinks, steel ingots and public libraries, divorce and inter-library loans. More than 8,000 topics from academia to zinc shipments are listed in the 1983 StatsCan catalogue.