VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM .1.

Information and Society is the topic of a new course that was taught o ver one semester at the Department of Library and Information Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University at the beginning of the year. The course cotters the definition of the information society; historical p erspectives, industrialisation of society and the concept of a post-in dustrial society; scenarios for the future; forecasting social and tec hnological change; demographics; trends in research and development fo r LIS, the virtual librarian, and implications for professional educat ion and continuing development. Students were asked to contribute thei r ideas about the future of information development by the year 2000 a t the beginning of the course and their thoughts are given below - the se should provide a nice contrast with those already published in this column.