EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) systems have been mainly conceived to be used within the world of commercial transactions. Owing to their technical characteristics andcircumstances, however, they also arouse the interest of Information Science professionals. This paper describes the main features of the EDI systems: their assets, the technological infrastructure that they use and their conditioning factors as well. EDI's presence in the European market is studied. The characteristics of EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport), ODA/ODIF (Office Document Architecture/Office Document Interchange Format)and FORMEX (FORMalized EXchange of electronic publications) standards are examined as well as the problems posed by these
formats as regards document standardization techniques. An overview is given of some of the main ongoing European projects within the library and Information Science field which are related to Electronic Data Interchange
