Electronic Publishing: Research Issues for Academic Librarians and Users

published or submitted for publicatio

Moving history forward

CURRENT EVENTS, CURRENT awareness, and faster news mean the immediate present often dominates our worldview. But for many researchers, history informs the latest hot topic

Working for a Vendor

A combination of content creators, online vendors, other intermediaries, and librarians work to bring online information sources to end users. Although these interconnected parts are sometimes adversarial, the current information marketplace relies on interaction among them all. People have wondered what it is like on the other side. The author interviewed three veterans who started out in libraries. This article presents the interviews

Expert Views of the Future

While no one knows for sure what the future holds for libraries or the online industry, experts have their opinions. Tenopir buttonholed 17 of them for their views of coming changes in information science and delivery

Ingenta Grows in the U.S. Market

The Ingenta-InfoTrac databasesInfoTrac OneFile Plus and Expanded Academic Plus-will be available this summer as InfoTrac Plus. In the meantime, InfoTrac Web provides links to Ingenta journal articles for current InfoTrac customers. When fully implemented, the system will provide integrated searching of the InfoTrac and Ingenta content through the InfoTrac Web interface

Hybrid Databases

States that basic categories of online databases are less relevant as the trend moves toward mixed-type or hybrid databases. Hybrid databases combine one or more database types, such as bibliographic/full text, bibliographic/directory, directory/full text, etc. DIALOG; Mixing different types of records within a single searchable file; ABI/INFORM; PTS PROMPT; Health periodicals database; Search strategies

Sorting Through Online Systems

Librarians often ask if there\u27s a simple way to keep online systems straight in order to help users and conduct efficient searches. Although there is danger in oversimplifying the complexities and contrasts among the hundreds of online systems and databases to which libraries provide access, all but full-time online searchers should practice a simple coping mechanism. First recognize the similarities rather than the differences (today\u27s commercial online services are more alike than not) and then focus on the few important differences that make each system stand out

The Importance of Data, Information, and Knowledge in Scholarly Communication

Research in scholarly communication, including the role and importance of data and publications, can reveal important insights into how knowledge is formed and transmitted. These insights can be interesting in and of themselves, as answers to fundamental research questions such as how formal communication helps science progress, and they also can help librarians and publishers and researchers create better information systems. This paper is about the intersection of these concepts in the study of scholarly communication with examples from my own research and the work of others that inspired me in formal scholarly publication

Disappearing Databases

JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, September 30, 2002, 19 databases disappeared without a trace from the Dialog online system. The reason? CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) and Dialog had failed to reach a renewal agreement. On October 1, Dialog searchers received a message file does not exist when they entered a CSA file number. A logon message listed the file numbers that were removed. (Admittedly, a notice was sent to subscribers, and a logon warning message ran for a couple of weeks prior to October 1.) This is just the latest case in a disturbing trend of disappearing databases

The User-System Interface

More options in user-system interfaces are being introduced as a result of the growing popularity of end-user searching. A number of user-systems that are more user-friendly are detailed