The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

Introducing The Source

Information and Communication Technology in New Zealand: 2006 (Note: PDF)

From the Statistics New Zealand website

This report follows high-level results from the 'Household Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Survey', 'Business Operations Survey', 'Government Use of ICT Survey', 'ICT Supply Survey' and the 'Internet Service Provider (ISP) Survey'. It is the first of its kind and contains previously unpublished information from each survey, and provides additional analysis and international comparisons. Past results are also presented in greater detail.


Enabling Cities in the Knowledge Economy (Note: PDF)

From the Communities and Local Government website

Cities matter for two main reasons. First, because of the productivity benefits they offer. Cities developed because they were near a natural resource and people clustered there to benefit from that resource, and to share costs. Whilst many cities may no longer benefit from the original reason they developed, proximity to resources – these days largely people or other places – remains cities’ central value. The proximity that cities enable also boosts productivity through enabling ‘tacit’ knowledge to be shared, the knowledge that cannot be easily ‘codified’ and is best exchanged and developed through face-to-face contact and trust-based relationships. In other words, firms can benefit from ‘spill-over effects’ from other firms’ innovative activity.

In an economy where the source of comparative advantage is innovation, cities are the places that are most conducive to knowledge sharing and to the consumption benefits attractive to the highly skilled workers required to make the knowledge sharing more productive. In this context, understanding the factors that create sustainable and economically successful ‘knowledge cities’ – cities that are primarily based on knowledge industries and/or workers – becomes increasingly important.