Dear colleague,
By the time you receive this Newsletter,
the countdown to the year 2000 would have begun in earnest. In many parts
of the world, emotions concerning this date range from a sense of anticipation,
to excitement, to feelings of foreboding as we await the arrival of the
so-called new millennium even if, as purists, astronomers and others point
out, the third millennium does not start until 1 January 2001. However,
since this dating system is based on the Christian calendar with its cultural
and social values, strictly speaking, it is irrelevant for 70% of the world.
Next year will be the year 4698 in the Chinese calendar (the year of the
Dragon), 5760/61 in the Jewish calendar, 1421 in the Islamic calendar and
1922 (Sakra era) in the Indian calendar. One could even contend that our
calendar calculations are also erroneous since next year is not 2000 years
after the birth of Christ!
Yet, the hype about this "event"
has reached such a pitch that some people are being encouraged to have
a "millennium baby"; some will travel great distances to be the "first"
to meet the new era; others again are afraid that it heralds the end of
the world. Still, whatever ills or blessings the year 2000 will usher in,
one thing seems certain, a global computer crisis will occur, even if here
too, pundits are divided about its severity and the total impact it will
have.
Some have predicted that more than
90 percent of existing computers will be unable to cope with the date change.
It has been reported that household appliances will fail to function, banking
systems will collapse and all areas of life will be seriously affected,
while others believe that most personal computers will have no problems
at all with the new date and those that do, can easily be fixed, so therefore
the situation is over-exaggerated.
Electronic systems which are not
year 2000 compliant or capable (since there is no official international
standard for compliance) and involve processes based on dates are expected
to shut down, produce incomprehensible and/or misleading data, or revert
to some other date which could result in the disruption of sectors of the
economy and other essential operations.
What is unpredictable is whether
inter-operating systems can and will continue to function. No one can state
with any certainty what the consequences will be if a corrected system
connects to one that is not. And there will be systems that haven't been
corrected since some companies, knowing they can't fix all before the end
of the year, have decided on those they have deliberately chosen to let
crash.
Nevertheless, despite dire predictions
that civilization as we know it will end as a result of the shutdown of
the world's economy and the implosion of labour, basic common-sense should
prevail. Since most people are aware of the probability of errors in their
computer's data, it seems unlikely that suppliers who recently acquired
stock would throw it out just because a computer says that the expiry date
has passed. Or would an important document be discounted simply because
it showed that it was printed 100 years ago?
Basically, direct impact from this
problem, also known as Y2K or the millennium bug, will vary from person
to person, place to place and organization to organization. The indirect
impact though, will be the most damaging since it will usually be randomly
generated.
Whatever the extent of the Y2K problem,
a number of web sites and other sources of information have been established
to provide advice on and help both the general public and corporations
cope with potential disaster.
Many United Nations Agencies have
compiled useful information on the problem that can be obtained either
directly, or from the UNDP Office in developing countries. In addition,
most countries have set up a national coordinating body which can be consulted
for detailed information. At the individual level, libraries should encourage
their community to take certain basic precautions such as keeping paper
copies of all important documents and records.