In his interview to our journal Oleg Shevkun, Editor-in-chief of the radio of the All-Russia Association of the Blind, shared his vision of the information society. For him the information society – is, firstly, freedom to get necessary information and make own choice, as well as possibility to lift, or at least to soften, the limitations, which fell on the lot of a certain person.

The topic of this issue – "Information as a factor of changes", – set by an exclusive interview is examined in seven new publications. In the column "Social and economic problems of the information society" it is an article by our regular author, Olga Vershinskaya, PhD, devoted to necessity of "directed" e-development and elaboration of social technologies of citizens’ engagement in the information society, and an article by Sergey Dyatlov, PhD, about new phenomena and processes, which require academic understanding in conditions of global information and network economics.

The column "Measurement of Information Society" includes two works: an article by Natalia Sadovnikova, PhD, and candidate of sciences Elena Klochkova about a system of statistical indicators of the State Program "Information Society", and an article by postgraduate Klim Legchakov, who compares history of development of conceptual model of the information society statistics in the world in and Russia.

Sphere of ICT application is also represented in two articles: one by candidate of sciences Yury Akatkin, who proposes program and instrumental gateway "Agent of interdepartmental electronic interaction" as an efficient tool of e-government technologies implementation, and another by Tatiana Buldakova, PhD, candidate of sciences Sergey Suyatinov and master’s student Dmitry Mikov, who consider the challenge of revealing the information risks of the virtual health protection center.