[Note: This is a re-formatted manuscript that was originally published in On the Horizon, 1992, 1(2), 6. It is posted here with permission from Jossey Bass Publishers.]

Information technologies will grow far more sophisticated in the next few years, but social acceptance of some information services is likely to lag behind. The most important technologies recently selected by science and technology reporters include:

• miniature machines
• electrical superconductors
• animal and crop engineering
• tailor-made materials
• fiber-optic networks
• wind and battery power
• high-definition TV
• more complex/valuable computer chips
• object-oriented programming

[New York Times News Service, (1992, February 3)]

Implications

Two functions of higher education are to advance knowledge and to disseminate knowledge. Colleges and universities could influence social acceptance of information services by not only utilizing the technologies in classes, but via service roles in partnership with business and governmental agencies where these technologies are used.