The Social Work Docuverse

The impact of electronic technology on social work has not been fundamental or transformative in any way comparable to the impact upon a variety of other professions and disciplines. A major potential impact of electronic systems for communications-based knowledge systems like social work lies in the area of textual processing systems which are only beginning to come to the fore. This article concentrates on one such set of technology -- hypermedia -- which already makes possible the construction and delivery of a social work docuverse which contains an electronic knowledge base of the field. Actual realization of such a web and exploration of the vast networks of linkages it implies will be an enormous task which should be the first major scholarly enterprise facing social welfare scholars in the new millennium. Several major problems must be overcome in creating such a vast undertaking include a number of critical organizational, legal, educational and political issues. The very nature of the emerging technology together with the inherited traditions of professional education make such a task inherently a matter of the common good of the profession