Information Sector as Economical Category

About at the break of sixties and seventies of this century the first functional and publicly used information system developed from originally experimental and non commercial applications of computer technology in storing and retrieval of document records. At the beginning these were mostly parallel editions of bibliographies in both printed and magnetic format. Thus developed on one hand data bases of national bibliographies derived from the MARC project of the Library of Congress and on the other hand special and specialized data bases such as CHEMBASE, INSPEC, ERIC or WPI. At the same time important commercial online information retrieval service centers , DIALOG, ESA-IRS, DIMDI, STN and others were beginning to operate. Also at that time thoughts about delineating new branch in world economy "the information sector" were springing up.

Information services then became relatively fast an economical sector. Investments into computers, telecommunications, and also personnel grew rapidly in organizations which undertook business in the field of information services. These then ranked between the most successful enterprises according to statistics reporting the annual growth of business turnover, and also of financial gains. These were on one hand the producers of data bases and on the other hand vendors of online retrieval services. This enterprising is at all times characterized by globalization of markets, and also by investments into research and development because the innovation cycle is exceptionally short and the competition great. All mentioned signs of this type of enterprise caused the creation of what is today described as INFORMATION INDUSTRY. We do not mean by that an industrial production of information technology but rather the industrial character of providing information services.