The lifeworlds of large parts of the human population have undergone profound and wide-reaching transformations through the expansion of the internet. Yet great parts of the world are still offline or have only patchy access to the net. Cheap smartphones, tablets etc. as well as access to (off-grid) electricity reach populations outside urban centres and industrialised regions. The scientists’ fascination with the internet – where money, investments, business models, communication, political control, as well as their lifeworlds converge - has largely obscured the potential of offline digitised information for the storage and distribution of information and the appropriation of knowledge. The profound changes of the socialisation of human knowledge through the revolutions in the transmission media (from rhapsodic to writing, from handwritten texts to printed matter, from book and journal to digitised electronic media) have influenced how societies through human brains – the primary social organs - produce, distribute, receive and appropriate information. The expansion of access to digitised information revolutionises horizontal and vertical transmission. The differences are manifold: physical requirements are reduced – a whole library fits into a pocket; digital information is much cheaper to acquire; logistic chains through which books or journals are produced, shipped, distributed and stored are as unnecessary as are libraries in zones without concentration of demand. The actual access to information is also vastly different – the electronic search function and the offline Wikipedia may serve as examples . This suggests a rethinking of the “digital divide” which is no longer synonymous with internet access. Is there still a divide or rather a frontier zone where different forms of access overlap? What are the distribution mechanisms for offline digital information? Are there self-reinforcing loops? Which market mechanisms may grow from the technological dynamics? To what uses can digitised information be put offline? How will the new availability of ever cheaper technology affect knowledge production?

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Digital Information,Offline Information,Knowledge Production,Knowledge Management,Technology Transfer