Ideology of Information Technology‪.‬

WILLIAM BIRDSALL is University Librarian at Dalhousie University. He is the author of The Myth of the Electronic Library: Librarianship and Social Change in America (1994). He is currently co-editing a book on telecommunications and public policy. Robert Fulford, in a passionate defence of the ideology of the book -- the commitment to make knowledge universally available -- expresses the concern that information technology "will change the economics of reading and the place of knowledge in society."(1) If there is an ideology of the book, is there as well an ideology of information technology? Indeed there is, and Fulford is right to be concerned. The implications of the ideology of information technology are diametrically opposed to that of the ideology of the book, and their impact potentially as profound.