Planning information: an interim report

Abstract

PEOPLE WHO are involved with information in relation to the practice of town and country planning in Britain, have to beware of a dichotomy which exists in the planner's meaning of the word ‘information’. While the average librarian thinks of information mainly (though not exclusively) in terms of the printed word presented in some sort of documentary format, the average planner, in speaking of information, is referring to raw, quantified data relating to the spatial unit over which his planning activities extend, which he feeds into a computer, and which forms the basis for projections and forecasts and, ultimately, strategies. To the planner, this process, of storage in a data bank and processing, constitutes the planning information system; and the design and operation of efficient systems in local planning authorities throughout Britain is, with a few exceptions, no more effective than is the totally inadequate provision of libraries and information services which exists (also with a few exceptions).

Citation

WHITE, B. (1973), "Planning information: an interim report", New Library World, Vol. 74 No. 6, pp. 128-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb038139