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Editor's Note Unlike some, this issue of the Bulletin of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology is not narrowly focused on a special topic but deals with various aspects of information and society. First, Lee S. Strickland continues his examination of the balance
between security and civil liberties in Part IV of his series, "Information and the War Against Terrorism." Strickland was formerly the CIA official responsible for the development of the agency's information and privacy
policy, as well as the management of all information release for the agency.We then turn to the global scene as Joseph N. Pelton discusses "Life in the E-Sphere," his vision for the critical role information
technology may play in preserving the human species through the 21st
century. Pelton spoke on this topic at the ASIST Annual Meeting in November 2001. He is currently deputy director and research professor with the Institute for Applied Space Research at George Washington University and the founder and executive director of the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Telecommunications and Information (CITI).
Looking at this topic on the ground, so to speak, we continue our coverage of information access in developing countries, in this case Indonesia. The first of two papers, "The Indonesian Digital Library Network Is
Born to Bridge the Digital Divide" by Ismail Fahmi, was awarded first place in this year's International Paper Competition sponsored by SIG/III. Fahmi's paper discusses an architecture to address the problems that poor connectivity
poses to digital library (DL) implementation, as well as IndonesiaDLN, a project with which he has been closely involved. To supplement this view we have a paper by Widharto, librarian at SEAMEO BIOTROP in Bogor, Indonesia, on the
general situation of Indonesian libraries since the Asian economic crisis of 1998. Widharto's paper was also submitted to the SIG/III contest and placed highly in it. Finally, we take note of a recent innovation at the
Annual Meeting: the poster sessions. This feature was very popular with researchers and attendees alike. Michael Buckland and Gary Marchionini review some of the highlights. Irene L. Travis, Editor
Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
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