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Experience has shown that states lose business and stall the ensuing development of their economies because of a lack of quality and foresight in their education systems. Some states feel that they have a vast reservoir of unskilled citizens who will work for nothing and companies will buy into it, but Harlan Cleveland in his article, “Education for Citizenship in the Information Society,” writes that “people who do not educate themselves, and keep re‐educating themselves to participate in the new knowledge environment will be the peasants of the information society.” Many research libraries are also stunting their own development through a lack of foresight in the provision of service. These libraries feel that their “all‐encompassing” unconnected collections continue to be a drawing card for recruiting and retaining the best scholars. University administrators who are also strategic planners will not continue to financially support this attitude.

An organization's value structure is measured in terms of assets or lack of assets. Assets are items that have an exchange value. In a more strict accounting sense, assets are the resources of a person or business. Common types of assets are cash, equipment, real estate property, inventory, and good will. In the service industry employees are often described as assets to their company because their skills and personal contacts produce value for the firm. Information is considered an asset by organizations ranging from CBS or NBC to the Central Intelligence Agency. For many companies information is an asset, a type of raw material that contributes to the product development process. Information, of course, also may be that company's product. The concept of assets can provide a valuable way of viewing the management of a library.

Older workers are increasingly prized in the workplace, though they still represent an undertapped resource. What can be done to meet the needs of employees over the age of fifty so that they can enjoy a sense of self accomplishment, job satisfaction, personal growth and self respect—all while optimizing their contributions to the organization? This article uses the situations of six diverse “silver collar” employees to consider meaningful actions employers can take.

Leaders of successful organizations are consistently searching for better ways to improve performance and results. Frequent disappointments with past management initiatives have motivated managers to gain new understandings into the underlying, but complex mechanisms ‐ such as knowledge ‐ which govern an enterprise’s effectiveness. Knowledge Management, far from being a management “fad”, is broad, multi‐dimensional and covers most aspects of the enterprise’s activities. To be competitive and successful, experience shows that enterprises must create and sustain a balanced intellectual capital portfolio. They need to set broad priorities and integrate the goals of managing intellectual capital and the corresponding effective knowledge processes. This requires systematic Knowledge Management. With knowledge as the major driving force behind the “economics of ideas”, we can expect that the emphasis on knowledge creation, development, organization and leverage will continue to be the prime focus for improving society.

The purpose of this article is to understand how coronavirus impacts relate to existing vulnerabilities in different world regions.

The article utilizes quantitative analysis to examine regional variations in coronavirus risk assessment. It then qualitatively employs a policy coherence for development (PCD) approach to analyze how public policies contribute to or mitigate vulnerability, defined as the product of exposure to external shocks, institutional coping capabilities and risk associated with social divisions in societies.

The research presented below shows that significant regional variance exists in terms of coronavirus risk, based on statistical analysis of the INFORM COVID-19 Risk Report prepared by the European Commission. The PCD analysis highlights important relationships between public policy strategies and the construction of both underlying vulnerabilities and coronavirus impacts.

The PCD approach presented here focuses on the reconciliation of trade-offs. It shows how policy interactions affect vulnerabilities and suggests that coherent policy strategies aimed at reducing vulnerabilities are necessary in order to adequately respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

This analysis frames vulnerability as a socially constructed condition and through implementation of a PCD approach, it indicates how policy strategies contribute to or mitigate vulnerabilities. In doing so, it intends to contribute conceptually to the literature on vulnerability by showing how policy incoherences contribute to the construction of this condition. Empirically, the originality of this article is its statistical analysis of regional variance of coronavirus risk and the qualitative analysis of policy strategies in representative cases and how they have affected vulnerabilities and coronavirus impacts.

Seeks to outline the impact of the information society on the institutional changes taking place in the public sector.

A veteran of government outlines the impact of the information society on the institutional changes taking place in the public sector. Drawing on his extensive experience and the literature, he provides creative insights into the themes of this special issue.

E‐government may prove useful in managing routine tasks, he agrees, but the highly complex, interpersonal nature of government places severe limits on the extent to which public work can be automated. With government outsourcing much of its work to private firms, and corporations required to serve the public interest, there is also a marked overlap of the public versus private domains. The old hierarchies of the past are being fragmented by information systems and the need to involve people in managing complexity, leading to “uncentralized” systems in which initiative and creativity must be exercised at all levels. And the mismatch between geographic boundaries and the criss‐crossing nature of real problems creates confusion over how governments should be organized.

All of these trends, the author notes, pose paradoxes that mark the distinctive features of government today.

Today, entrepreneurs are “predicting our future by inventing it”. This phenomenon is in response to the rapid economic growth and social change brought on by new technology and expanding world markets. Over the next fifty years, Americans may contemplate annual per capita income raising five to tenfold from the present $12,000 which our industrial society produces. The service economy will become more and more a knowledge or information economy. All institutions, public, private, for‐profit and not‐for‐profit, are changing or being changed. The economic value of knowledge is just being recognized. Libraries, as collections of books, are becoming value‐added information and knowledge centers. The present library world is confused by the apparent conflict between serving traditional scholastic and emerging business needs. There is great opportunity for service and profit to the imaginative library that organizes to provide the new forms of knowledge now available or being developed. Library systems need leaders with vision and the ability to negotiate major change — not administrators. Librarians as entrepreneurs must learn business. This includes venture management and finance. Available assistance includes: growing intrapreneurial understanding in large institutions; family and friends; ample private wealth seeking investment; new business incubators — many university sponsored; a maturing, amply funded venture capital industry; and rapidly spreading local ‘venture clubs’ organizing community resources for entrepreneurs.

The pillars of public administration rest on balancing the triumvirate of traditions, managerial, political, and legal, in developing and implementing public policy. The normative concept of leadership has consistently surfaced as an important dimension in the policy process. However, scholarship exploring the importance and relevance of leadership in public administration has been sporadic and limited in scope. This article elucidates the disconnect between the study of leadership and public administration. To validate the relevance of leadership in public administration, future empirical studies must embrace the long-view, heuristic inquiry, and the lifecycle of leadership.