Remote Access: The Development of Information Services and Technology in the Global South

Abstract

When the development of equitable worldwide telecommunications became recognized as a critical component for global competition and economic growth, the technological status of economically developing countries appeared on the international agenda. The primary problem was one of infrastructure, with two thirds of the world population without access to telephone services. As multinational corporations pushed for a global restructuring of the telecommunications sector issues regarding control of worldwide telecommunications networks by the industrialized nations, and the imbalance in the flow of information, left the economically developing nations of the global south reticent to fully cooperate. This chapter examines the development of information technology and services in the global south and provides an historical overview of significant events and factors that influenced the introduction and growth of communications and information technology globally from the 1960s to the 1990s. The technological foundations that are discussed in this chapter provide a contextual framework for understanding the burst of activity that followed in international Internet-based library services in the 1990s.