Information policies in Spain

This article describes information policies in Spain from three perspectives: legislation on information contents, actions to promote and stimulate information exchange, and information management in government agencies. Spanish legislation has been aligned with European Union laws and is, therefore, fairly up-to-date, as is shown by several specific examples. Nevertheless, the country suffers from a certain lack of information ease of access, which is particularly evident when seeking to gain access to government information. This may he caused by the lack of a law that guarantees the right of general access to information. Currently, there is no public debate as to how to turn Spain into an information society, whatever this term is to mean, and what little there is is focused more on infrastructure than on the more important infostructure. The article poses the question, “can Spain's current model of “economic development” continue to be valid without a superseding model of “information development” that provides vital support to the educational system, libraries, and the local information industry?