A new special report on managing information appears in this week's issue of The Economist. "Data, data everywhere" examines how the growth in the production of information has resulted in several intended -- and unintended -- consequences, from information management challenges for businesses and individuals to information overload, privacy and information security issues. Many of the topics in the issue are only recently being appreciated by society at large.

Information schools, or iSchools, have been examining the uses and users of information since the movement's emergence in the 1970s. More recently, a group of information schools has been working together to spread awareness of the iSchool movement through the auspices of the iCaucus. The University of Washington iSchool, as a world-leading member of this movement, sees an important and largely unmet need for scholarship, research and education that facilitates, supports and enriches human engagements with information and technology.

"The information schools movement has never been more integral to our hopes for progress," said Harry Bruce, dean and professor of the University of Washington Information School and chair of the iCaucus Board of Deans. "The work emerging from these schools propel science, business, education and culture forward by helping us all do what we do more effectively, efficiently and ethically and with a heightened sense of possibility. With our combined expertise in fields like library and information science and computer science, as well as management, law, philosophy, communication and engineering, we have only scratched the surface of the potential contributions we stand to make in the future."

To view all the articles in The Economist's special report, visit their website.