Illinois Institute of Technology Trustee Lecture

Secretary of State George H. Ryan

Good morning. Mr. Galvin, Chairman Pritzker, President Collens, trustees, faculty, staff, ladies and gentlemen.

I am deeply honored to join you today to mark the 10th anniversary of the Galvin Library and the 100th birthday of technology entrepreneur and education benefactor, Paul V. Galvin.

Paul Galvin blazed many of the technological trails that we travel today, and we can learn much from his example as we face the challenges of technology in the future.

He persisted in the face of setbacks. He lost two businesses before founding Motorola on the eve of the Great Depression.

He kept his finger on the pulse of not just what technology could do, but of what technology could do for people.

And he maintained high standards of quality and performance, with a continuing commitment to engineering and research.

As we reflect today on Paul Galvin's accomplishments and where further advancements in technology will lead us in the years to come, I'm reminded of something Abraham Lincoln once said:

"When you've got an elephant by the hind leg and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run."

In many ways, the explosion in information technology is much like that runaway elephant, and a lot of us are doing all we can just to hang on for the ride.

Our world is changing rapidly, even more quickly than most of us expected with the possible exception of the folks at Motorola.

And ready or not, we must change too, or be trampled and left in the dust.

In an article just a few months ago, Newsweek summed up the situation we face in the following way:

"The revolution has not only just begun, but already it's starting to overwhelm us."

"It's outstripping our capacity to cope, antiquating our laws, transforming our mores, reshuffling our economy, reordering our priorities, redefining our workplace, putting our Constitution to the fire and shifting our concept of reality."

In short, the explosion of information is fundamentally changing us and the way we live.

The typical home computer user right now has sitting on his or her desktop more computer power than existed in the entire nation the year we sent a man to the moon.

Access to that kind of information power will change us in ways we would never expect, much as the mass production of the automobile has fostered all sorts of unexpected outcomes, from the growth of our suburbs to the production of air pollution to the creation of drunk driving as a scourge on our highways.

As I see it, my challenge as an elected government official in the late 20th century is not to fight this change, but to anticipate it and put it to work for the public good.

Or, to continue my earlier metaphor, my job is not to stop the raging elephant but to steer it into productive paths. New information technologies offer tremendous opportunities to redesign and retool the ways an office like mine offers vital services to the public.

We took our first steps down this path in December 1993 with an initiative we call "Touch-Tone Renewal," which lets Illinois motorists phone in to buy a new license plate sticker 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Later this week, I will become the first Illinois secretary of state to unveil a home page on the World Wide Web.

11

Our focus with that effort is not just to make information available but to use our booth on the information highway to offer government services in a new way.

I am concerned that we don't adopt technology just for the sake of technology.

Technology in and of itself does not provide all the answers.

We must be vigilant to apply it as a means to an end, not as an end in itself, for our mission in government is to provide service, not high-tech razzle-dazzle.

To that end, I see our home page as a place where people should be able to go to sign up as organ donors, to get information about incorporating a business or to pick out a vanity plate.

And that day is coming soon.

A recent study by a prominent state data center suggests that more than 50 percent of all government services could be delivered through electronic kiosks or by home computers.

This, of course, has profound implications for government as we know it.

Today, about 10 percent of our U. S. workforce, or about 15 million people, work for a city, county or state government.

Throw in those employed by the federal government and the total rises to 20 million.

By giving us new service options, the communication revolution stands to dramatically alter the role of the public service worker in our society.

As Shoshana Zuboff points out in her book, In the Age of the Smart Machine: "Learning is the new form of labor." Similarly, information is today's most valuable commodity.

In the Information Age, approximately 60 percent of the workforce consists of so-called "knowledge workers," people who must continually learn in order to perform their jobs.

Which brings me to one of the key points I wish to make today.

Librarians clearly are among the chief professions that will experience, manage and address these challenges.

At the recent World Wide Web conference in Chicago, a frequently heard comment was that the Internet is a "job creation manifesto for librarians."

As people find that accessing information on the Internet is like "drinking from a fire hose," people who are skilled in locating, evaluating and organizing materials are becoming ever more highly valued and prized.

I take great pride in the fact that we in Illinois are leaders in library technology.

For almost two decades, we have been laying the infrastructure for what is now the finest statewide network of library services in this nation.

We started years ago with the creation of an interlibrary loan program that is truly statewide in scope.

Every single day, libraries across Illinois are pulling materials from each other's shelves and getting them delivered by a van service coordinated by my office.

Under this system, the smallest library in our state is a resource to the largest, and vice versa.

Right now, a million items a year are loaned among the 3,000 public, school, academic and private libraries of our state.

Here at ITT, the Paul V. Galvin Library and the Kent School of Law Library, with its reputation for imaging documents, particularly legal and international legal documents, is a vital component in that array.

And now, the coming of age of computer technology is helping us put the final pieces of our service puzzle together.

In the last three years, my office has allocated more than $6 million to plug Illinois libraries into the information highway.

We've spent close to a half-million dollars to make an on-line research service called FirstSearch available to many libraries, primarily academic libraries.

FirstSearch provides quick on-line document delivery of magazines and journal articles. This helps libraries better balance the demand for both traditional print materials and on-line services.

Our Access Local Library, or ALLY, grant program has made sure that virtually every school and public library in Illinois now has a state-of-the-art microcomputer with modem.

Most Illinois libraries can now use those computers to check out any of nearly 9 million different books and library materials listed on our on-line statewide catalog, ILLINET Online.

ILLINET now contains listings for about 800 Illinois libraries, and we add more every year.

12

A year ago, we launched the CLUE E-mail program, which lets librarians in our state communicate and receive information from each other quickly over their computers.

And right now, the potential is there for just about every public library and many school libraries in Illinois to have access to the Internet.

The main barrier to that access is not the availability of an Internet connection, it's the cost of a modem or a phone line.

No other state in our nation has given its libraries such a strong infrastructure for access to the information highway as we have.

And now, we in Illinois are poised to take the next step into the real development of the "virtual" or "digital" library.

When that day comes, our librarians will be prepared to answer not "What have you GOT for me?" but "What can you FIND for me?"

And it won't take days for the information to come, only minutes.

The day is coming when it won't matter where you live or which library card you hold.

You might still be heading down to your local library to check out the latest Tom Clancy novel.

But when we finally achieve the perfect marriage of books and technology, we will be pulling the information we want and need not from a library but from an ARRAY of libraries.

What does all this mean to people who are still rumbling to find the "on" button for their computers?

Let me tell you a story about an Illinois librarian named Cookie Dierker in rural Argenta, near Decatur.

Since much of her rural district is not strung for cable TV, Cookie Dierker brought cable to the library so local farmers can stop in and see the Cubs play, among other viewing choices.

She loans out videocameras so that the farmers in her library district can record insect or storm damage.

She also loans computers and software, and even a telescope so that farm mothers and fathers can show their children the full beauty of the black sky over our Illinois prairie.

Like many libraries, the Argenta library invites local patrons to come in to use the fax machine.

And when the local coffee shop closes down for vacations. Cookie Dierker opens the library before dawn, offering coffee and doughnuts along with instructions on how to pull up market prices on the Internet.

In this case, and in so many others across our state, librarians are not just technology-friendly.

They are PEOPLE-friendly, and that makes all the difference in the world in exposing, and exciting, Illinoisans about taking their leap into the Information Age.

Just as important, librarians are playing a key role in making certain that these new technologies are available to ALL, so that our nation is not divided further into a society of information Have's and Have-Not's.

Yes, ownership of home computers is expanding at a rapid rate. Last year, for the first time in our nation's history, the sale of computers outpaced the sale of TV sets.

Even so, many U. S. households are without a computer or a modem, and many people will never own one.

We must ensure that libraries are able to fulfill their traditional role in society by being the universal access point to information for all.

You in this room have more than the usual awareness of the importance of communication technologies and the need to plan for universal access.

We in Illinois are fortunate to have the most sophisicated infrastructure of library services in the nation.

We have some of the finest libraries in the country, the University of Illinois Library, DePaul University Library, the University of Chicago Library, the Fermilab in Batavia and the Art Institute Library, to name a few.

We also are home to some of the most cutting-edge technology firms in the nation, some of which are represented here today.

It seems to me we have a critical mass of energy that could be directed into a highly productive partnership with a goal of addressing many pressing problems in this state, in particular, the need for a better educational system for learners of ALL ages.

The challenge I wish to lay before you today is this:

How can we use this critical mass to make communications technology more available to all?

While the availability of information technology is mushrooming, many of our libraries are straining to access it.

13

As one librarian puts it:

"Tomorrow's school and community libraries will be marvels of technology, if they can afford to remain open."

How well our libraries succeed in making the new information available to everyone ultimately depends on the availability of funding and community support.

Right now, just 21 percent of public libraries in the U. S. have access to the Internet.

Our libraries are sorely in need of a modem-day Andrew Carnegie or Paul Galvin to help them construct, not new buildings, but ways to offer new information technologies.

Next, how can we join in making this new technology affordable to all?

The costs of hardware, software and on-line services are extremely high.

Most libraries face a choice between books and technology.

We hear of high schools that have Internet connections, but are allowed a maximum half-hour of use a MONTH.

We must find ways of making on-line access more affordable, possibly through a special telecommunications rate for schools and libraries.

Finally, how can you join me in making new technology more understandable to all?

Your companies and organizations have vast, highly developed information resources that are well beyond the scope of what most schools and libraries can offer.

Your organizations could be a source of important training opportunities and resources for schools and libraries around our state.

You can provide training rooms, consulting assistants, samples of state-of-the-art equipment and software and pilot partnerships of various kinds.

As we celebrate the wonderful advancements of the Galvin library and the exciting world of information that is now available by modem, it is important to reflect on the voids that still need to be filled.

Many of our state's best and brightest minds are studying these challenges and preparing for the future.

But we continue to need innovative thinking and financial support.

I challenge you to consider how you can be part of the solution.

Send me your thoughts.

You can reach me at my e-mail address on the Internet: Secryan@ccgate.sos.state.il.us.

Thank you.

*lllinois Secretary of State and State Librarian, George H. Ryan. This speech was given in Chicago on November 13,1995.

14