A wealth of information?

For the past two weeks, I have been inudated with articles and posts of how there is so much information at everybodies fingertips. I had thought, in my ignorance, that everbody in the world had a wealth of information available to them. This is not true. There are many third world countries struggling to attain information for their students.

I am currently reading Open Access, which explains the importance of having scientific journals open to the public. In chapters 6 and 7, the author uses a university in Africa for an example. This university (at the time of writing the book) did not have many journals at the library. It did not even have a subscription to a journal in the subject the school specialized. The library had to keep canceling subscriptions due to rising costs of the journals. Many professors where gleaning information through emails, the internet or asking for copies of journals from colleagues around the world. Eventually, a program, which used a satelliate to transfer information, gave access to over a thousand journals to this college.

While reading this, I was struck with sadness that in one country a person is blown over with so much information that it is an overload to them, while in other countries they cannot get their hands on enough to provide a satisfying education. No wonder it seems some countries cannot get ahead, no matter how much help they receive. I was pleased, upon further reading, that plans are being made for a global information center. How wonderful to be able to be a part of providing somebody information who needs it.