Information resources ... It seems to me that it is difficult to meet a person who would never have come across this concept in his life.
Having thought logically, we will definitely come to the conclusion that the development of any society is impossible without the presence of various types of resources: energy, instrumental, material and, finally, information.
We live in a time that can be described as a stage of an unprecedented increase in the flow of information. This growth is carried out immediately in several industries, the most popular among which are economic and social.
Information was, is and remains one of the decisive factors that determines both the development of technologies and resources in general.
Information, in turn, should be understood as a set of information about objects or phenomena that surround us in the everyday world, their properties and conditions.
Section 1. Information resources. Definition of a concept
Information resources are both ordinary documents and collections of documents. The latter are placed in public or private archives, libraries, foundations, museums, depositories, banks and databases.
We, of course, remember that up to the end of the last century, all types of information resources were only tangible, quite tangible objects. For example, books and the press were the most common of them. Now times have changed, and most prefer to store information on the so-called electronic or digital media.
In general, one cannot fail to note that a peculiar scientific paradox is associated with the term, which is discussed in this article. What does it consist of?
The thing is that although it is one of the most important in solving issues related to the informatization of society, at the moment no one will give this concept an exact definition. And if we turn to the scientists for clarification, then most likely we will get the answer that this actually happens sometimes, and this definition has not yet been finalized.
Then it becomes unclear in what form it is customary to present knowledge and data among specialists. After wandering around the open spaces of cyberspace, I found the answer - through understanding the very essence of the information resource, as well as its role in various social processes, directly through the laws of their transformation, formation and further dissemination.
Section 2. Electronic information resources. Their consumers
Today it is customary to distinguish between active and passive information resources. Active means the part that is available both for automated search and for storage and processing. It is stored on computers in the form of specially created programs and is predominantly text and graphic documents. By the way, many information resources can be available to users only on a commercial basis.
If we talk about the main participants in this market, then they, of course, are:
- users (we are with you);
- sellers of information (publishers, bookstores, owners of Internet resources, etc.);
- data producers (authors, editors, journalists, artists and musicians, they also manage information resources).
In the modern world, the most widespread means of accessing information is, of course, computer networks, and most users receive information online.
In addition, this market can be divided into the following segments:
- computerized systems for redundancy;
- financial information services;
- Databases targeted at both professionals and the mass consumer.
Databases, which are a kind of virtual book, can in turn be divided into five types:
- bulletin boards;
- multimedia;
- specialized software;
- tabular and numerical;
- text.
And, finally, I would like to note that both national and world information resources are significant economic categories, as well as one of the most important indicators of public information culture.