Thoughts about information in a library

Abstract

The word information has become a cuslomary expression of our days, though its meaning is highly nonuniform, because for various cuslomers it has different meanings. The unrestricted use of fhe word information and its compound words can lead to pitfall, and the announcement of "information services" in general, without any qualification of explanation is misleading. The author discusses possibilities and restrictions connected with various categories of information. What one obtains for scienlific and technical information is but bibliographic data of some relevant documents. Possibilities are much limited also in business information. Several separate fields of information are the various public and nonpublic information services other than scientific-technical or business information. The conclusion is that the heterogeneous character of the concept of information and the numerous restrictions of information services should be made public, primarily by education, for everyone, until perfect informafion systems utilizing a high diversity of databases and the results of artificial intelligence will not be available widely.