At time when Czech media are focused on economic crisis, on financial scandals and on early elections in June, we tend to perceive only some of the important changes proceeding in our society. One of such transformations connected with the social changes after 1989 is a transition of Czech society to the Age of Information and Communication Technologies. This "third wave" that starts to approach our society does not only involve generating new digital telephone exchanges, usage of wireless telephones and increased interest in Internet. The essential part of the change is a transition from industrial society to the information society, where the influence and significance of individual elements do not consist in the ownership of industrial commodities but depend on swiftness and quality of attitude towards information sources, and on ability to apply the information strategically, to analyze it and to know its value.
Such changes and transformations in society bring about demands upon abilities and education of labor power, changes in labor distribution and in the way of thinking. Understanding the significance and the power of information and appreciation of information industry is crucial for changes in the way of thinking. These changes are then tied with several processes such as labor organization, introduction of new elements into the educational process and priorities in investments. The new demands upon labor power have been probably felt by each of us who recently underwent a job interview. Today it is almost impossible to obtain a new job without at least basic knowledge of computers, and other technology; a qalification that today have almost become the second literacy. Due to the feedback between labor market and offers of educational institutions, students are being prepared for some of these requirements already during their studies, and/or this lack is solved by short-termed goal-oriented courses. However, this relatively flexible reaction is not enough for the whole labor power to survive in information society.
The necessary measures are changes in the way of thinking, in systems of values and in labor distribution. Many have understood or had to understand that investment into communication and computing technology is worth it. Application of such technology enabling "table research" and necessary secondary dependence on it is of course connected with an investment into certain type of labor power or services. The demand for people who are technically able to work with this technology and ensure its functioning is quite high. This is not the problem. But the investment into computing technology will be fully valorized only when this technology will be used for obtainment, compilation and analysis of strategic information for a given activity, especially at prominent posts. This is where the most demanding part of transformation lies: the increase of information culture, using the services of information industry and changes in organization of the labor power.
Logically, the information society demands upon improvement of information culture will be mostly felt by people in managing positions, i.e. managers. Today, they can’t rely anymore on their intuition, knowledge and experience in their decisions, but the quality and accuracy of their decisions depend on quality, topicality a relevence of the information that they had available. However, as their access to the information is usually mediated, their information culture depends among other things upon the estimation of the significance and meaning of these mediators and upon the fact whether they are or are not used to the services of information industry. The essential expression of information culture is therefore (in relation to the possibilities and demands of given institutions) an acquisition of their own qualified labor powers, that would obtain, process and analyze the needed information, or eventually ordering such services from some other component of information industry; information and database centers, information specialists and so-called "information brokers."
Considering that the quality of information and information sources is increasing exponentially it is impossible that those who decide and need such information swiftly would be always able to acquire and prepare the information background. Work with a large amount of different information sources and even quality and then subsequent processing and analysis of the found necessarily involves a special qualification, grounded on a swift orientation in information sources, on an ability to distinguish first-rate and significant sources of information from irrelevant, on a mastery of examination and searching strategies techniques and on other abilities arising from the above mentioned demands. Specialists that possess such knowledge and whose swiftness and quality of their answers increase with praxis, are called information professionals, commercialy then they are often called "information brokers."
The increasing significance of information and of its sources can be also seen from the fact that access to many information dabases and services is not free and their price usually depends on the quality and on the strategic significance of the source. This is the raison d’etre of not only few working places but of whole institutions that possess an access to such profile sources of information and qualified labor power as mentioned above.
National Training Fund (Narodni vzdelavaci fond) provides an umbrella for one of the projects directed at increase of information culture in the Czech Republic. The services of
Information center for management development (IRSM), a project supported by National education Fund and executed at the Czech Management Center library in Celakovice, are mainly directed at two primary groups; managers and educational institutions in the management area. Both groups receive studies from information databases and other sources, based not only on the attitute towards significant information sources but mainly on qualifications of information professionals preparing these studies. IRSM issues a unique review magazin "Management Digest" that supports knowledge about interesting news and trends in the area of management development in form of notes of Czech and foreign books and also contains reviews of magazine articles with a subsequent option to obtain whole article. A cornestone of the whole project library at CMC is a basic information service, a book loan.
The emphasis in the information society on the significance and the power of information is challenging not only for the managers themselves but for the educational institutions preparing a new generation of managers in their courses or seminars as well. Ability of our society to enter the age of information depends on its flexibility to new demands. And precisely this ability should be provided by educational institutions with a directed and focused preparation of future managers on the conditions of informations societies, its required abilities and demands. Precisely this understanding of the key role of information sources, working with them and habitually using the information services, should become an integral part of agenda of the future managers. Therefore the services of IRSM include information seminars prepared in cooperation with the specialists from the Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship at Charles University where the participants learn to use information sources in praxis. A special information service of the center is also a mediation of information about educational institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad from an unique dabase Clearing House IRSM that includes general information about institutions operating in Czech Republic, Europe and North America, their list of courses, information about their content and orientation, information about application process and study options, course materials, books, case studies and research papers.
Project of Information center for management development has successfully started in 1996. Since then the center tries to improve its offered information services and mainly focuses to market these services and popularize their access. Marketing of information services in the society that is only at the beginning of the transformation to the age of information is one of the most demanding tasks. But positive feedback of the IRSM services and increasing use of information services related with a skilled mastery of communication and computing technologies show, that such projects have bright future in the information societies of the 21st century.
Petra JEDLIČKOVÁ, ISRM