Address by His Excellency the Right Honourable Sir Ninian Stephen, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia on the Occasion of the Opening Session of a Seminar on Access to Government Information, the Faculty of Law, Australian National University, Canberra, on Friday, 27 May 1983

Extract

The title of this seminar reminds us of the extraordinary increase in access to information of all kinds which has overtaken us. This enhanced access to information is the chief gift bestowed on us by the information revolution of the past 15 or 20 years. And its gift has been an abundant one; some might describe it as over abundant, fearing lest the relevant be submerged in a great tidal wave of unco-ordinated information. This fear echoes the thought which lies behind TS Eliot’s lines when he wrote, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”.

Clearly enough, mere information, now proffered to us in such profusion is only the raw material of knowledge. But so long as we recognise that information is only the raw material from which knowledge derives, not confusing information with knowledge, and so long as we are skilful in our use of the electronic tools which the information revolution has given us, narrowly focussing our retrieval processes, the raw material which information consists of can be precious stuff indeed.