Across All Borders: : International Information Flows and Applications; Collected Papers

Citation

Gorman, L. (1998), "Across All Borders: : International Information Flows and Applications; Collected Papers", Asian Libraries, Vol. 7 No. 6, pp. 136-137. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1998.7.6.136.2

This is a collection of papers published by Marta Dosa between 1974 and 1994; they appear here with only minor changes plus an introduction by Clifford M. Bishop. Dosa is Professor Emerita in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. However, her research has been characterised by interdisciplinarity, and the present volume illustrates the breadth of her interests.

The papers are presented in six parts. Part 1, on information and national development, comprises four papers from the 1980s and 1990s on the role of information in the development process. Themes include the importance of respect for cultural differences in developing countries; the importance of information transfer in development aid; and the need to use indigenous information. Dosa also outlines the broad trends in development strategies since the 1950s and shows how information has been conceived in relation to aid, development and technology transfer.

The second part, on human resource networking, includes papers likely to be of less interest to those concerned with international issues. Thus community networking specifically in relation to gerontology and health features here, alongside information management in rural development, and electronic networking designed to strengthen cooperation in information science and management between developing countries. Part 3 contains five papers on problem solving and information counselling. Here Dosa stresses open communication, cooperation, interdisciplinarity, a humanistic spirit (in relation to consultancy work in developing countries) and the need for information professionals to be knowledgeable on issues such as transborder data flow, intellectual property law and standards in technology transfer.

Part 4 focuses on information policies, particularly in a development context, and includes a paper on the challenges for the information professional. Part 5 addresses education, training and professional development, including environmental education and training, informatics, international education programs for managers of information and data in organisations, and training the trainers in information management. There is also a paper on recruitment of international students (suggestions from Syracuse) whose inclusion might be questioned, although Dosa does relate this to the process of intercultural technology transfer. The final part contains a single paper on the American transnational corporation and information. Here she argues that constructive relationships between transnational corporations and developing countries are mutually advantageous and recommends new thinking about information infrastructures and information ethics, concluding with specific recommendations.

Quite lengthy lists of references accompany the individual papers; and there is a classified set of further readings (pp. 371‐91). The volume concludes with name and subject indexes, an important feature of a collection of writings such as this.

This volume is well produced, and it certainly offers Dosa’s writings to information professionals in a convenient and accessible form. Yet, as with many such collections, some of the papers will be of more interest than others (as indicated above). Furthermore, this area is subject to such rapid change that a volume on international information flows, published in 1997, which contains no index entry for “globalisation” or for “the Internet” suggests that it is already dated.