By B. Keith Fulton

When the baby-boom generation - Americans born between 1946 and 1964 - grew up, they were told that if they learned the "three Rs" and worked hard, they would be successful.

For most of that generation, it was true. The industrial age was kind to men and women who could read, write and do arithmetic. These traditional basics were all that were necessary to master the opportunities of an era defined by mass production in large industries.

However, our world has experienced an epochal shift in the global economy. We are now in the information or knowledge age. The current period is defined by businesses that create, sort, store and move all forms of data.

It is estimated that only 22 percent of the current workforce is prepared with the skills that will be demanded in the 21st century. For Generation X - Americans born between 1965 and 1976 - and those that follow, information literacy is a new basic.

Information literacy is the ability to access, interpret and respond to information. While the traditional basics will still be required for meaningful participation in society, information literacy will be a key factor in determining the "value added" that information-age employees bring to the company or that entrepreneurs bring to the marketplace of ideas and solutions.

In short, the new basic includes the ability to apply the elements of reading, writing and arithmetic within the context of interactive computing.

The access element of information literacy focuses on the need to be familiar with the tools of the information age. These access tools include computers, modems, the Internet and databases.

Firms that add value to the new economy will be those that can maximize the efficiencies created by computers and online networks. Many of these efficiencies, like mining data on the Internet, sharing files across distances by way of e-mail or maintaining a company-wide database of problem fixes, assume access to the Internet and other network technologies via computer.

Currently, African-Americans are less likely to own a computer than are whites. This disparity in access, called the "digital-divide" by some, puts the African-American community at a serious competitive disadvantage. Firms that can traverse this divide are the most likely to be profitable in the next millennium.

The ability to interpret information is another key element of information literacy. Put simply, the Internet has over 54 million independent destinations. Some of them are reliable and some are not.

This volume of information is multiplied exponentially if we add the content of massive commercial databases like Lexis-Nexis and DIALOG, or the thousands of private company databases that exist on internal corporate networks.

With global access to so much information, the baseline economic value of data can be terribly low. Knowledge-age workers must be able to distinguish between irrelevant or unreliable data and the data that can be processed into relevant information for decision-making. Workers who can interpret the contents of Internet-based resources and other information-age resources will add value to the enterprise.

Finally, the information age is characterized by interactivity. It is assumed that new entrants to virtual communities increase the overall benefits to a given community of connected citizens or workers because each member can exchange perspectives and resources.

Whether it's by way of e-mail, fax, phone, presentation or visit, information-literate citizens will be those who know how to respond to information in this interactive environment. Electronic commerce, forwarding messages and files, adjusting one's strategy, updating a client and/or sending e-mail requires processing and thought.

Responsive knowledge-workers ask and answer these questions: "Who can use this information?"; "How should it be used?"; "How can I make it available 'just in time' to add value?"

In short, information-literate workers who know how to respond to information are thinkers. They discriminate between information sources and make thoughtful decisions about putting information to work.

So if you cannot compute, it's time to learn. If you are information-literate already, it's time to teach as many other people as you can to be the same. Like the traditional basics, information literacy is something that you will use and build on from the cradle to the grave. Once acquired, information literacy will be your master key to the gateway of life-long learning and interactive computing in the next millennium.

B. Keith Fulton is director of technology programs and policy for the National Urban League. He can be reached by phone at (212) 558-5394 or by e-mail at bkfulton@nul.org