Information is a resource, which together with physical, economic, manpower and technical resource is needed for the development of a country. Throughout the history of human societies, and not even more fundamentally throughout the evolution of man, it has been demonstrated that information are therefore, such vital parts of development of a country and society the without these activities no development is really possible. In other words it can be said that as the nation's information and knowledge grows and the number of documents increases, man's dependence of them consequently increases in large proportions and the need to gain access to them becomes more and more crucial. In fact it would be an exaggeration to say that no society can advance beyond a certain point without effective access to its collective memory of information contained in documents, or conversely, an advanced society that loses control of these documents is sure to regress. The availability of this information when it is needed, where it is needed and the form in which it is needed, improves the ability of an individual, a business, a government agency and various other kinds of organizations, to make informed decisions, to conduct research, etc. and those achieve over all goals of the socio-economic development of a country.
In the present day world, the need for information, in particular, relates to scientific, technological and related fields wherein the growth of information is really fast to the extent that it almost doubles itself within every 10 to 15 years. Even if Social Science, as a result of intensive research programmes during the next 100 years or so, much information has been generated in the world as a whole, and ready access to this information of past and present is indispensable to individual advancement as well as to the national growth. However, in the Humanities, relatively speaking, the situation about information and its dissemination still is not so difficult or crucial as in Science and Technology of even in Social Sciences.
Several Asian countries have already taken concrete steps to build up large collection of this information and knowledge in Libraries and Information Centres. However, it is usually found that this precious resource is concentrated in relatively few locations in these countries, virtually inaccessible to millions of people and largely in an unorganized and untapped manner. Thus there is an urgent need as well as challenge to find ways and means for making these resources available to more people through effective identifications, location and distribution system. Such a goal would however, be achieved only if these resources are knit together in a natural grid of National Information System with the aim that any one living anywhere would have access to these resources through properly planned and developed channels of information communication.
Looking at the developments in this field at the international level, it would be relevant to point out that UNESCO and various other agencies are actively engaged in encouraging the establishment of NATIS in various countries of the world, so that these systems can be fully integrated into national plans for education, science, culture and socio-economic development of a country. In addition, systems such as Unisist, Agris, Devsis, Popins, etc. have already come into existence through active initiation and participation of the UN and other agencies. In this country for example, in the field of Science and Technology, a National Information System called NISSAT has already been planned and steps are being taken to put this system into reality. In the field of Social Sciences, much work has already been done by the Social Science Documentation Centre of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and plans are being formulated to develop a National Information System in Social Sciences during the sixth Five Year Plan.
While the ultimate aim in each country, should be to develop a National Information System, the activities of the Information/Documentation Centre at the national level and/or specialized areas can certainly be considered as important components in the system as such. It is with this view that this issue has been planned to give information about such centres in India and few other countries like Asia , viz. Bangla Desh, Korea and Sri Lanka. The first two articles discuss the need for planning national information infrastructure with particular reference to India and the remaining five articles describe the functions and activities of these centres in these countries.
Since the amount of information about the NATIS I various countries in Asia is quite large, it is hoped that information in about various other countries and different other aspects of the NATIS would be included at some later stage in the future issues of this Journal.