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Examines the origins of the office building and its broader economic and cultural significance. Discusses how the new information superhighway may affect the future of the office building. Asks whether this information “revolution” can provide an economic, cultural and socially‐acceptable alternative to the office. IT will change the way people work and, as a result, their spacial requirements. In this context it is claimed that organizations must examine their property requirements as a matter of urgency. Considers what advice property professionals should be giving to property purchasers, developers and investors. Concludes that office buildings are likely to continue to play a key role in the UK′s economy due to their importance as a source of tax revenue and emphasizes their social importance as a logical and convenient setting for individuals to interact.

Lead paper for a virtual conference on Global Information in Africa proposing that the debate extends beyond the technical and professional. Introduces the impact on education, research, economics and culture, morality, communication, work productivity, and political democracy.

All Australians to get access to the information superhighway. New electronic information services including the Internet and access to Government services will become available to all Australians under a new initiative, Accessing Australia, announced in December by Australia's Prime Minister, Paul Keating. The Government will commit $18 million to improve access by all Australians to information services in their local neighbourhood.

The information highway is a management issue with the same importance as information technology applications and information technology management. Deals with some critical issues that arise in the evolution of an information highway age and its alignment with the evolving management perspectives and strategies.

According to the declarations of the first World Telecommunications Development Conference in Buenos Aires in 1994, new technological developments in telecommunications and information technologies have the potential to close the development gaps between developing and developed countries. However, it adds, ominously, that telecommunications may also unintentionally perpetuate the development gaps without a more determined, integrated, and strategic approach to the challenges of telecommunications development by governments, the private sector, and international and regional organisations. It adds that liberalisation, private investment, and competition may foster the development of telecommunications. In this paper, an overview is briefly presented of the information infrastructures in the developed world. Then, the status of telecommunications infrastructure and services in Africa are briefly discussed, and the current Internet connectivity within Africa is examined. Finally, possible remedies to the African situation are briefly discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities for librarians operating in a global information environment.

The exploratory research design is adopted and secondary data are also used. The method is to first examine the concept of globalization, the status of information and communication technology (ICT) in African countries and current issues in library practices with specific focus on digital technology, and internet use pattern across Africa. The next approach is to examine the challenges and opportunities for libraries and librarians in a global information environment.

The paper concludes that the critical challenge for information professionals from developing countries is to harness technological systems to globalize their information resources and services. The opportunities of doing so are boundless, borderless and beneficial in accessing the global information pool.

Nigeria libraries are critically situated at the crossroads of digital revolution that is creating new vistas for information service provision. But how far and how fast they move from the crossroads to the emerging digital threshold will define their quality as well as quantity of information services provision by all species of libraries.

The paper originality lies in its concise articulation of the boundless opportunities in a duality of a global information environment and the argument that librarians, who will manage information in the globalized environment, must acquire skills that will make global professionals rather than local champions. It is further contended that Nigerian libraries must join the march of civilization and the radical impact of the globalization process. This is because of the fact that in the garden of humanity, nothing is static; that which fails to grow will begin the process of gradual extinction and irrelevance. This paper looks at the library in a global information environment. It also examines the impact of ICT on global information network. The opportunities offered by the impact of ICT on globalization are also discussed. It articulates the challenges for librarians and libraries in global information environment.

Highlights Africa’s historical glory and position in the information and communication sector against the perspective of her previous contribution to the development of the information age. Now as a net importer of information, and having lost the earlier standing, information technology is a key resource that should be maximised by the African nations in order to achieve competitiveness in the current dynamic world economy. Africa is at the crossroads with the rest of the world. It is now economically stagnant and technologically marginalised, having only 1 per cent of the Internet connectivity out of over 50 million intended worldwide users. There is one telephone for every 200 people, only 2 per cent of the world telephone connections. The current situation is analysed by means of a literature review which identifies the fundamental issues and difficulties facing African countries in the age of the information society. The participatory roles Africa needs to play as her contribution to the creation of a global information society are highlighted in the discussion.

The article explores Africa’s initiative at building a regional plan for the formulation and development of a National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICIP) in every African state. The paper also examines the challenges and opportunities confronting Africa in its bid to launch itself into the information age. The role of information, communication and knowledge in accelerating African socio‐economic development is emphasised. The paper makes a critical examination of the globalisation of economies and argues that globalisation appears to favour the rich and not so much the poor. It challenges the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to provide funding for the project if it is to succeed. It eventually concludes by making the observation that Africa’s Information Society Initiative (AISI) should promote Africa.

The study described in this article aimed to gather insights into what people think when they search the Internet for information. The premise is that people relate to information services and systems metaphorically. In other words, they identify the system or service as analogous to something perhaps more mundane or commonplace. These are known as wild metaphors. They help to explain the unknown or unfamiliar and help us to learn new things. They arise from our individual beliefs and backgrounds but they are also inevitably influenced by our collective experience of contemporary media characterisations of the Internet. This study relates the analogies that academics in Australia report for the Internet with the satisfaction that they derive from information seeking on the network. It provides some insight into how academics in Australia perceive the Internet when they use it to search for information.

Suggests that the development of new interactive service is stimulating the global convergence of the telecommunications, computer and media markets, creating an integrated industry, but there is some doubt about customer demand and how to approach it. Presents a study which contributes to the discourse on segmentation with a view to targeting. Tests the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the early adoption of previous technological innovations introduced over the past 15‐20 years and the predisposition to use new interactive services. The results of a small scale survey did not lend full support to this hypothesis; associations were established only in a small number of pairs of innovations. There were, however, significant subsegments within the sample which were positively predisposed to using education services, travel, news/information and video‐on‐demand through the new interactive technologies. Within the evidence examined, it could not be established that early adopters of communications and computer products are necessarily a starting target market for emerging technologies. Concludes that exploitation of interactive services requires recognition of the likely existence of differentiated market segments and thus the crafting of focused marketing strategies for different service packages.