Joan R. Challlnor<br >Chair， &hlesinger Library Advisory Committee<br >It is our privilege， or our misfortune， to live at a pivotal transition in world<br >history. The print era， which spans more than five centuries， is rapidly shifting<br >into a new age in which books are being challenged by electronically distrib-<br >uted texts and images. This revolution will transform every institution and prac-<br >tice-governmental and business， scholarly and popular， public and private.<br > Believing that libraries are at the very center of this fundamental shift in<br >the ways we acquire， store， and disseminate information and ideas， and wanting<br >to grapple with women s role!in the future as well as in the past， the Advisory<br >Committee of Radcliffe s Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the<br >History of Women in America~decided to convene an international conference<br >on "Women， Information， and the Future." This conference， the proceedings of<br >which are collected in this volume， was planned as the culminating event of the<br >library s 50th anniversary in 1993-94.<br > The Schlesinger Library was well suited to hold such a conference: since<br > 1943 the library has collected published and unpublished source materials<br > chronicling the history of women in the United States from before 1800 to the<br > present. During that time， the library has collected papers of prominent and<br > representative women， women s organizations， and families， as well as oral<br > history transcripts， audiotapes， films， microforms， and many thousands of books<br > and periodicals. It has become the foremost center for research on the history of<br > women and their contributions to U.S. society.<br > The Schlesinger conference had its genesis in an earlier event. In 1991 the<br > Women s Library and Information Center of Istanbul， Turkey， had sponsored<br > the First International Symposium of Women s Libraries. At that meeting，<br > Patricia King， then Director of the Schlesinger Library， offered to sponsor a<br > second conference in 1994. Building on this decision， the Advisory Committee<br > further decided to expand the theme of women s place in the world by consid-<br > ering the challenging issues presented by the Information Age. The 1994<br > conference was the result.<br > The conference took place as two further truths were becoming widely<br > acknowledged: that power and information are indissolubly linked and that<br > women have an essential role in sustainable human development. In planning<br > the 1994 conference the organizers wished to explore the ways in which these<br > basic principles interact with one another. If women are to continue to assert<br >s!aaoI~<br >l]!J aql<br >]xa aql<br >~aqlom<br >jI IlIM<br > ~n Ol<br >OAO1 I，，<br >nj/，aaA<br >p asoql<br >SmAOa<br > pasop<br >:，gJ 01.<br >q u~qan<br >als!suo3<br >~at/:~lv9<br >osoqi，，<br > aSeald<br >! s!qI，，<br >l~ aqs<br >) ，~aldo3<br >pj "mop<br >s~u!~I，，<br >~D "PIP<br >lenSfl，，<br >aapuo~<br >oemtuI<br >su!~s!A<br >ted Ul，，<br ><br >