Economic pressures, technological changes and political decisions will affect the structure of information systems. There will be a need for the provision of more accessible, more comprehensive, faster and more standardized statistical information systems coordinated on interdisciplinary and international bases. A staff will be required to develop, design and operate the information system. A broad, basic education in information science will be needed in addition to specialization. Education programs can be examined according to three variables: work orientation, professional level and specialization. Program organization and topics taught should be correlated to these variables. In actual practice, most of the schools examined in the United States included the topics of information storage and retrieval, indexing, and content analysis and design. Few taught mathematical tools, the scientific bases of a subject or research methods. The European programs vary considerably although many include organization and dissemination of data and more mathematics and linguistics than in the United States. The majority of existing programs are limited by a narrow view of the field of information science. (JG)