Document Type : مقاله مروری نقلی
Author
Assistant Professor, Library and Information Sciences, Faculty of Information and Management, Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
Undoubtedly, knowledge and information play important roles in the information society. They are considered as the assets or capitals. Since the lack of access to reliable information in all fields, especially health area, imposes high costs, so information has become the center of economists’ debates, forming a new study field called "information economy". On the other hand, nowadays, libraries and information centers as one of the main providers of information and information services are encountered with many economic challenges to solve which they need a correct understanding from economic features of information and information services. Since economic analyses of information goods and services differ with standard economic analyses, this paper endeavors first to examine information as economic goods. Then, it states unique features of the information; and finally, it explores common approaches for pricing such goods and services as well as the challenges in receiving costs by the libraries and information centers. Key words: Information Services; Pricing; Economics
Keywords
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