Abstract

People, organisations and societies need knowledge to satisfy their needs so they can survive and develop themselves and move forward in time and space. Knowledge on themselves, their social and their physical surrounding. Those who are better than others capable to satisfy their information needs in an effective and efficient way, and participate in the relevant information networks are more capable to survive and develop themselves than those with less advantageous traits. However, there are barriers that complicate or can even block the successful access to needed information and to the information economy. Four types of potential barriers that are based on interdependencies between people: economic, political, affective and cognitive are described