VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM .2.

In the last issue, second year undergraduate students taking the Infor mation and Society option at the Department of Library and Information Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK contributed their tho ughts about the developments they would expect by the year 2000. Their ideas were presented as the course started. The option covers the fol lowing topics: definition of the information society; historical persp ectives, industrialisation of society and the concept of a post-indust rial society; scenarios for the future; forecasting social and technol ogical change; demographics; trends in research and development for LI S; the virtual librarian; and implications for professional education and continuing development. Three students who wrote down their though ts at the beginning of the course agreed to write a second contributio n which reflected their thinking at the end of the option. It was felt that this might show how thinking could have been changed and develop ed as a result of the course taught.