[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 15, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        INFO-HIGHWAY TO NOWHERE

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                         HON. MARTIN T. MEEHAN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 15, 1994

  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, the information superhighway envisioned by 
Vice President Gore and officials in the industry, has taken flight. 
The information age is allowing companies to conduct research at record 
speed and with minimal cost. New businesses have cropped up around the 
United States which specialize only in the dissemination of data and 
statistics. One such business, IQ Inc. was featured in a Christian 
Science Monitor article which I would like to share with you.

          [From the Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 30, 1994]

                        Info-HIghway to Nowhere

                 (By James Matarazzo and David Manshel)

       A stunning irony underlies the current push to create a 
     National Information Superhighway. The United States 
     government is preparing to spend a minimum of $400 million to 
     get the proposed information conduit up and running over the 
     next several years--but is ignoring the dwindling supply of 
     information professionals trained in ``data acquisition'' 
     that the National Information Superhighway will require to 
     operate.
       The U.S. government has to foster the growth of 
     ``information managers,'' or we will have built a road at the 
     same time we have closed some of the most important on-ramps.
       That is because corporations and others are closing their 
     business and technical information centers at a furious pace. 
     Since 1990, hundreds of prestigious information centers, such 
     as those at the Bank of America, Liberty Mutual Insurance, 
     Department of Defense bases, Department of Defense bases, 
     Department of Interior, Houghton Mifflin, Digital Equipment 
     Corporation, and the Engineering Societies Library have 
     closed or been drastically curtailed. Many of these units 
     were in operation 30 years of more.
       Furthermore, fewer aspects are around who have the 
     necessary experience and credentials. The number of Masters 
     of Library and Information Science Degrees conferred to the 
     last decade has decreased 50 percent. These graduates will be 
     many of those with the skill and know-how needed to navigate 
     150,000 on-line sources of information and 200 million on-
     line records.
       Yet we see self-congratulatory rhetoric that 
     ``information'' is America's competitive edge and that the 
     federal government will foster the growth of these 
     information conduits or networks.
       Do public officials really believe that harried executives 
     will find the time or acquire the expertise to use a GOPHER 
     program? Or patiently investigate the data bank categories of 
     Dialog? Much less quarry the card catalogue of the Library of 
     Congress.
       The answer to this vacuum of expertise lies in a two-
     pronged solution. First, in tandem with the kind of 
     government support and subsidy that is impelling creation of 
     the information superhighway, there has to be support for the 
     training and employment of experts in ``data acquisition''--
     the intelligent identification, sifting, collating and 
     interpreting of the oceans of data ready to course through 
     this information superhighway.
       Second, the government should encourage a recently 
     introduced entity in the private sector: professional 
     ``informators'' at commercial information agencies--small, 
     technology-rich, information-skilled entrepreneurial 
     companies they have carved a niche by supplying ``briefings'' 
     on demand on an overnight basis to the nation's 
     decisionmakers.
       Such widely respected companies as ITT/Sheraton, McCann-
     Erickson, Phillips Petroleum, FMC Corp., Smith Barney 
     Shearson, Maxwell Laboratories, and McGraw-Hill have 
     tentatively begun using the ``informator'' alternative and 
     are achieving results.
       They need to be encouraged to continue using this 
     commercial information agency option; both to spur the growth 
     of these important new riders on the nascent information 
     highway and because their use maximizes management time and 
     resources that are often frittered away on dead-end research.
       Simply giving desktop access to information resources to 
     untrained, overburdened, or unmotivated executives only adds 
     to the ``hidden costs'' of corporate downsizing. Corporate 
     executives now face a ``make or buy'' decision: If they are 
     to maintain the competitive advantages of our ``information 
     society'' they must choose to maintain either the in-house 
     information center or the services of ``informators'' at 
     commercial information agencies, or both. The federal 
     government should encourage any of these options.
       If our elected leaders allow the current decline to 
     accelerate, we may find we have built a National Information 
     Superhighway to nowhere.

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