This volume contains the reports of three working groups which were convened separately over a 3-year period at the request of the Advisory Committee for the Division of Information Science and Technology of the National Science Foundation to obtain the opinion of experts concerning research opportunities and trends in information science and technology. Each group was charged with identifying research questions in information and technology that lie outside the more established disciplines, but could contribute to the understanding of fundamental questions that might foster the development of new knowledge. Taken together the three reports provide an overview of information science and technology which shows its relationship to its neighboring disciplines while also clarifying the essential ingredients that distinguish its thematic scientific problems from theirs. The first report suggests that fundamental questions relating the phenomena of learning and memory in animals to a theory of "cognitive processes" may create future bridges to the fields of automata theory and artificial intelligence. The second report confirms that the technology that has raised many questions because of its rapid and pervasive development is itself in need of more intense basic research in eight general areas, each of which is discussed in turn. The third report recognizes that economists are only beginning to develop theory with respect to the cost and distribution of information viewed as a commodity. (DMC)