Information Renaissance
It is my opinion that the information renaissance is a point in time during which we had our eyes opened to the importance of information and information flow. Just as in the 16th century when our eyes were opened to the importance of knowledge, so it was during the period of the information renaissance. I believe the roots of the information renaissance began as early as the fourteen hundreds. It was during this time that the printing press was created and this is what led to information being considered a transferable commodity.
Information has always been a valuable commodity, but until the “Information Renaissance” the value of transferring that knowledge to others was not known. This was because it was not feasible to transfer this information to the masses quickly and to do so in an affordable manner.
As mentioned, the beginning of the information renaissance began with men such as Guttenberg, when he invented the printing press. His printed bible (Gutenburg Bible) was one of the first examples of information revolutionizing the way people accessed information. The revolution began there but did not end there. The revolution spread across the world and is still expanding its reach today. One of the most obvious recent forms of the information revolution is that of the Internet. We have made information transfer easier and in doing so made it more valuable. Just like the renaissance period of the sixteen hundreds, we have liberated ourselves through the use of information. These two periods are very similar; one was based on cognitive knowledge, while the other was based on tangible information, but both changed the world.