No. 72, Fall 1996 A S IDlC

Executive: Items discussed by the Executive Committee included:

newsletter

Treasurer and Finance: Dan Jones (Newsbank), ASIDIC Finance Committee

ASSOCIATION OF INFORMATION AND DISSEMINATION CENTERS

Election Results

wo vacancies were filled at the Fall meeting elections. Randy Marcinko T was re-elected ASIDIC President,

and Jack Harned (Bedford Advisors, Inc.) was elected Associate Member-at-Large, filling a vacancy caused by the resignation of Reva Basch (Aubergine Information Services). A list of current Executive Committee members and Committee Chairs is attached to this Newsletter.

Committee Reports

Approval of the ASIDIC budget and Treasurer’s report. It was decided to in- vest some of the surplus in certificates of deposit. The ASIDIC LISTSERV is now up and ready for Members to use. Work on the ElJSIDIC document deliv- ery survey is proceeding. Over 8,000 re- sponses have been received, and the data are currently being processed. The final report should be ready in about 60 days; it will be available to ASIDIC members at a reduced cost. Some changes to the By-Laws are under consideration. Reports will be made on the LISTSERV and at the next meeting.

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Chair, reported that the organization contin- ues in good financial health, with a sizeable surplus. However, membership renewals have slowed, which could be a concerning trend for the future. At least six or seven new members are needed to maintain the present good financial condition. Membership: Membership Chair Ruth Koolish (Information Sources) announced the addition of two new Members. Help is needed in recruiting new ASIDIC members; they will shape the future direction of the organization. A membership brochure has been designed and is ready for printing. New meeting attendees were especially in- vited to a group dinner on Sunday night which was very successful; 19 people at- tended. Standards: Standards Committee Chair Bruce Kiesel (BIOSIS) reported on several standards relevant to ASIDIC. In addition, he also announced that the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has recently announced the selection of a team which will develop a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for use by the publishing industry. The DO1 will uniquely identifj published articles and other items delivered over the Internet.

Spring Meeting

he Spring 1997 ASIDIC meeting will be held at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, T New Orleans, LA on March 16-18,

1997. Mike Tansey (ISI) is the Program Chair, and the Local Host is Dan Wilde (NERAC). The program will concentrate on changes in the information industry, a highly relevant topic. New Orleans in the early spring is lovely, so mark your calendars now and plan to attend this significant event.

Fall Meeting

he Fall 1997 meeting will be in Seat- tle, WA on September 21-23, 1997. T Local Host will be Jay Ven Emen

(Access Innovations).

President's Column by Randy Marcinko

outhern charm and hospitality helped make our recent meeting in L.ouisville S a success. Thanks to Betty Unruh and

Art Elias, a pleasant time was had by all. During the sessions, we were challenged by a fine roster of speakers, orchestrated by Janice Kirkwood of Ovid Technologies. As a mirror of today's information society, the meeting raised issues of content 011 the In- ternet, the lack of high-quality information retrieval on the Net and the implementation of change as the Internet is incorporated into each of our local environ- ments.

I was glad to see new faces, like ASCAP and BioMedNet, at the meeting. The talk by BioMedNet aroused significant interest in those of us who have watched and/or dab- bled in Internet businesses. BioMedNet has amassed nearly 100,000 users-but, what are the implications for downstream profitabil- ity? With an opening gambit similar to' that of Netscape, BioMedNet is attracting users to an essentially free system. They have cre- ated a very exciting online environ- ment/playground for the researcher. This is a model worth watching!

The executive committee discussed ASI- DIC's membership topology. What compa- nies do we want as members? How do we attract new members? ASIDIC strives to achieve three major objectives. We want to

surround ourselves with representatives of companies, societies and associations that adequately represent a cross-section of the information industry. We want to learn more about the technological aspects of to- day's world. And we want to learn from our peers, as well as from speakers, about how to stay afloat while implementing new technology and coping with a changing information world.

I recently attended the EUSIDIC meeting in Bologna. The food was great, as was the camaraderie of the attendees present. How- ever, I was struck by the notable absence of key figures from the information industry. Both ASIDIC and EUSIDIC need to be con- cerned that we accurately represent the in- formation world: with speakers at meetings, and in our membership. Secondary database producers and hosts are no longer the only players on the landscape. We also need to hear from senior people within companies producing World Wide Web search engines, content managers from large information service providers, and non-traditional pro- viders of content from around the world, to name only a few.

Our next venue is New Orleans on March 15, 16 and 17. Come an join us for some spicy food, hot jazz and cool drinks. Dan Wilde and Kevin Bouley from NERAC promise an exciting time for all at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. Mike Tansey of IS1 is putting together a program that focuses on change in all its dimensions. New ideas,

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shared stories of how ow peers handle problems, possible solutions and straw men to tear down will be the order of the day.

Don't forget to joint the ASIDIC-L LIST- SERV. It is a great means for discussion by the membership between meetings. ASI- DIC will soon be releasing Docdel ' 9 6 North America. This study, available at a significant discount to ASIDIC members, should provide some interesting statistics on document delivery in North America. In cooperation with EUSIDIC, who is pub- lishing Docdel '9tkEurope, it will be possi- ble to review worldwide statistics.

See you all in New Orleans!

New Members

SIDIC welcomes the following new members: A

Microsoft Corporation Information Services 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052-6399

Representative: Katie Hover (206)-936-8082

InfoResources Corporation 59 Twin Falls Road Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922

D.T.Hawkins@worldnet.att .net Representative: Donald T. Hawkins

(908)-508-9777

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INTRODUCTION

ccording to one author (Don Tapscott in The Digital Econ- A omy), disintermediation refers to

the elimination of middleman functions between information producers and con- sumers through digital networks. It af- fects everyone in the information value chain: authors, publishers, librarians, end users, and vendors. This meeting ex- amines various value chain aspects of disintermediation.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

The State of the Information Union Jerrell Shelton, Consultant

ociety is undergoing a huge trans- formation which will not come S into focus for a long time, and it

continues to affect the information in- dustry. People are living longer and have more telephones, cellular phones, and computers (mostly mobile computers). There will be one communications sat- ellite for every three people by the year 2010. John Kenneth Galbraith said, “The imperatives of technology and or- ganization, not the images of ideology, are what determine the shape of the eco- nomic society.” Information companies and content providers are therefore struggling for position in this digital age. We are at the dawn of the digital age. Microprocessor power continues to in- crease, making computers more afford- able and easy to use. Society has

accepted this, as shown by the large market for computer games. Broadband digital communications (networks, and plug-ins) are on the increase and are be- coming publicly accepted. Information has become free flowing. Now, you do not have to complete anything to distrib- ute it, and feedback can be obtained even while works are in process. This free flow of information will liberalize mar- kets and impel greater leaps in technol- O g Y .

Society is reorganizing itself on a global and digital basis. The future is digital, supported by devices, networks, docu- ments, and workways. Networks will become electronic document webs which will provide information where, when, and how users want it. New displays will largely replace paper, and docu- ments will be in interactive, multimedia, and hypermedia formats. Today’s issues include bandwidth, authenticity, wireless growth, copyright, security, increased global competitiveness, outsourcing, and work reorganization. Most of these will disappear as issues shortly.

Information comes in four forms: data, text, sound, and images. Most of the action today is in the processing and storing of images and text. By the year 2000, development costs, support. and promotion will become more expensive; costs for gathering, processing, and dis- tribution will shrink.

Predictions for the Information Age:

Information linked with a task is the most valuable. The primary need will be for knowledge. Massive disintermediation will occur. New processes and services will break through. Information will be extensively commercialized. Most of the impact is yet to come, probably fiom outside to- day’s information industry.

These predictions will lead to: New classes of white collar profes- sionals,

0 Skill-driven markets, Virtualbanking,

0 Internet shopping, and 0 Rapid change (measured in weeks

and months, not years).

The digital future will impose a new type of thinking upon us. We will need to adapt to a new order which will be based on moving bits. Products of today will be cannibalized to form new ones, and today’s companies (IBM, AT&T, Sears, Hewlett-Packard, and others) are rushing to re-invent themselves.

The Internet explosion is upon us. Ac- cording to one estimate, there are now 75,000 Web sites, and 9.5 million US users. The Internet is experiencing dou- ble digit growth every month; predic- tions are that there will be a billion users by the year 2000. Interestingly, the country with the highest Internet growth rate is China.

The traditional information value chain included authors, primary publishers, secondary publishers, and a distribution

channel to the users. Everyone in this chain except authors is currently under attack. Primary publishers are becoming distributors and are selling directly to users. Secondary publishers face threats of electronic journals, cannibalization, new electronic services, and backward integration of distribution channels. Primary publishers are threatened by document delivery services, n e b orks, and interlibrary loans.

Major information industry trends roday include growth of networks, the Internet and World Wide Web, shorter half life of information, lower costs to produce information, open systems, and more sophisticated software. The indusuy is becoming solutions-oriented; “one-stop shopping” services are becoming popu- lar. Challenges for information provid- ers include access, manipulation, and managing transitions. The user is gain- ing a competitive advantage. Drivers for the remainder of the 1990s will be tech- nology, speed, cost, and quality. In many cases, highest quality information is not needed, “good enough” is suffi- cient to gain a competitive advantage. Information producers must adopt the latest technology, get their products to market quicker, and lower their costs to make a profit. In the next five years, key technologies to watch are ATM net- works, voice applications, data visuali- zation, text summation, virtual acoustics, and flat screens. There will be pressure on all types of organizations, and new habits will need to be learned to replace old ones. Workforce dynamics, includ- ing worker attitudes and cultures, are changing. It is important to have a focus on growth; the benefits are value and profitability, customer service, culture, and survival. Companies must grclw or

perish. In the future, information pro- duction and distribution will assume a much higher importance than it has to- day. Print is an old paradigm and is dy- ing.

The environment is moving forward very quickly, and things will never be the same. The future will not focus quickly or for some time to come. New tech- nologies must be embraced and re- sponded to in organizations because technological change drives strategies. The focus should be on customer value. Culture is about results; visionary lead- ership adjusts the culture constantly to succeed. Tomorrow will be exciting, exhilarating, much work, and will have many options (but standing still is not one of them).

ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Judith Feder Excalibur Technologies

ccess to content must be at the center of any information value A proposition, and the Web is a

given means of access. Excalibur uses a merger of two technologies; adaptive pattern recognition and semantic net- works. Adaptive pattern recognition can handle multiple data types (any digital format), fuzzy searching (fault toler- ance), and automated indexing. Seman- tic networks handle word meanings and relationships (knowledge-based infor- mation retrieval), natural language que- ries, and varying subject domains. Excalibur’s retrieval engine has the ca- pabilites for full Boolean and statistical retrieval functions.

A unified solution such as this is impor- tant to users who want to incorporate text and image searching, real time fil- tering, and networked agents (crawlers, etc.). A successful information solution must be complete, self-contained, modular, and use a variety of options for retrieving data, performing administra- tive tasks, and executing job applets. Accuracy is the key to user satisfaction; Excalibur uses term weighting, chooses word meanings, and accommodates fuzzy spelling. Popular search functions include non-textual information and query by example (“find something like this”).

Excalibur has entered into several part- nerships and joint ventures with the fol- lowing organizations. The applications vary, illustrating its versatility.

The Electric Library (formerly Homework Helper) is a database of many sources which are accessed by many users. It has plain English query capability and is now not only being used by students but also those needing business information. Roy- alties are paid to content owners by cycling different documents of the same relevancy to the top of retrieval lists, thus giving all owners an equal chance of getting royalty payments. A government intelligence agency has built the largest database outside LEXIS-NEXIS. Its database has many sources but only a few users. The database is updated hourly, with rolling indexes. Profile queries range from very short to huge (thousands of terms). Physicians Online is an electronic community for doctors providing ac-

cess to Medline and other sources based on medical thesauri. This ap- plication requires forums, classified advertising, and extensive communi- cation among doctors. IBM InfoMarket offers business, education, financial, and entertain- ment information. A query is passed to multiple services with different structures, query systems, etc. Re- trieved documents are encrypted in a “cryptolope”; the user can decide whether to purchase the full text or not. Excalibur is InfoMarket’s search engine. An international bank with a Lotus Notes interface has images, data- bases, Web servers, and electronic mail in its internal information sys- tem. All information such as project reports, newsfeeds, and proprietary information is delivered to the desk- top under a unified Excalibur inter- face. A Fortune 500 company built its business intelligence system with Excalibur’s tools. The system col- lects and indexes its data and pro- vides sophisticated tracking and information management..

The above applications of Excalibur’s technology show that many approaches are enabled by it. Customers need un- impeded access to information, the abil- ity to find a needle in the information haystack, access to multiple media, and pricing to fit their business environ- ments.

JeflHoerle Ovid Technologies,, Inc.

artnerships with other companies are very important to Ovid; no- P body can do everything alone.

Ovid uses the World Wide Web, authors, publishers, and end users as its techno- logical and behavioral models in devel- oping its products. The publishing industry brings order to information; with more effective access, information becomes more valuable. Effective ac- cess begins with well structured and in- tegrated information which is enabled by electronic publishing technologies. Customers expect efficient access to comprehend information, reasonable and consistent pricing models, and effective use of their time when navigating an in- formation system. Primary publishers expect to be able to continue to add value through the refereeing process, reach audiences through the best delivery channels, and build reliable recurring revenues based on both print and elec- tronic content.

The World Wide Web is built on distrib- uted content. The current configuration of the Web necessitates repeated query- ing of each individual site by users, leading to countless information la,youts and varying forms of payment. Jnfor- mation aggregators will provide an es- sential link in organizing the Web because content growth is occurring faster than disparate technologies can manage. Aggregation technology lever- ages the interrelated nature of infcmna- tion. The aggregator’s expertise is in technology; publishers have expertise in selecting and indexing information.

Ovid follows these models in developing its information collections. Its full text collection of 15 biomedical journals provides an initial bridge to a model for full text access. A single software inter- face can provide access to information in dozens of publications, while seamless links emulate and enhance the research process. Ovid provides its customers with a version of a digital library. Its database architecture creates intelligent relationships between collections of in- formation through searchable digital text in SGML format and with photographic images linked to the text. Ovid’s re- search teams continue to examine ways to make information more usable and valuable and to promote wide access to networked information.

The future will bring diversity into the Web. Multiple retrieval models will op- erate in concert, and business partner- ships between publishers and content aggregators will be formed. Open ques- tions include: 0 Who has ownership rights to ar-

chives? 0 What is the perfect pricing model?

Who owns the content when it is obtained over the Web?

Frederick Bowes 111 Electronic Publishing Associates

ontent is being delivered in both print and digitally over the Web. C The user can find many journals

at a Web site, but the control rests with the publisher. What does this technol- ogy enable? And for whom?

Publishing is not a homogeneous activity but provides information to communities

of interest. Publishers are very jealous of their content and do not want to give it to others without proper remuneration. Users of journal content include core researchers, specialized professionals, non-specialized professionals, involved laity (paraprofessionals, press, educators, etc.), and random users (one-time que- ries which seldom are repeated). Schol- arly journals contain works by authors who wish to speak to users who them- selves are authors; everyone else is basi- cally an eavesdropper. The core researchers are a small group and justify the existence of the journals. Other readers exist in larger numbers bu.t are less frequent users of the informiition, which requires a different economic model to get a payback. The value chain includes researchers (authors), reviewers and editors, publishers, secondary pub- lishers, intermediaries, and users. The users are not really interested in specific journals; all they want is information.

In the standard publishing model, all but authors and users are facilitators. The authors and users should be able to inter- act directly. Editors make relevance de- cisions, clarify the writing, and provide a perceived value. Publishers assemble and package the journals, libraries ware- house and catalog them, and intennedi- aries facilitate access. Electronic options are upsetting this model. Although peo- ple are used to a print model of infbrma- tion, electronic publishing means that many of its frustrations are removed. Editors are realizing that they can expe- dite publication by using e-mail, etc., and they no longer have to worry about page budgets. Search engines are taking over from intermediaries who are finding that they must redefine their roles. lJsers want comprehensive and relevant infor-

mation and a fast response, and they still want page images because they are fa- miliar with them. No system today pro- vides all these capabilities; a breakthrough solution is needed.

Commercial publishers take a different view .of distribution than professional societies. The societies focus on core research and will not cooperate with ag- gregators unless their members wish to do it. Many new publishing models will need to be tested; hybrids will exist. We do not know which model will survive. A good book discussing them is Value Migration by Slywotsky and published by Harvard Business School Press.

NEW BUSINESS MODELS

Bennett Lincoff ASCAP

opyright challenges in the elec- tronic marketplace need not be a C “crash site” on the information

highway. Collective licensing agree- ments in w&h individual content own- ers license a common agent to distribute their works are becoming popular. Service providers minimize costs by us- ing large collections of materials and are freed from having to negotiate with each individual copyright owner. Blanket li- censes avoid the need to monitor each use of the material; the savings realized from these arrangements can be passed on to users in the form of lower licensing fees, and copyright owners can reliably receive their royalty payments.

Every type of copyrighted work will be exploited online, although few uses are authorized. Large companies and pro-

viders believe they should be exempt from abuse charges because they cimot control their users; this view was re- jected by the Clinton Administration’s Working Group on Copyright Arriige- ments. Service providers are seeking legislation providing them with relief from monitoring information usage; if no relief is granted, higher costs and less information available may be the result.

ASCAP licenses music performances which may soon be as common online as television and radio are today. ASCAP has created a new blanket licensing agreement for the online market which has many usage pricing models-almost as many as there are providers! Usage patterns also vary widely and change daily.

ASCAP is seeking to negotiate 1.erms with committees representing various industries. Each agreement is tailored to the industry. Online service proyiders have not designated a committee yet, so ASCAP developed a model agreement themselves which is based on the rnusic industry. The model has four rate schedules: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Based on gross service revenues. This model is popular with services not tracking usage. Based on the value of the data. Revenues are received only from actual performances. Based only on revenues from ASCAP-licensed data. This model requires a sophisticated tracking system. Based on total operating budge1 (not revenues). This model is for non- profit services.

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The model allows rates to change as needed and accommodates a wide vari- ety of services. It accurately reflects the value of the data and provides fair return to copyright owners. It builds mutually supportive relationships . with service providers and gives reasonable prices to consumers.

Richard Charkin B ioMedNe t

ioMedNet was formed two years ago and has spent about $10 million developing its service

which provides customized biomedical information to its customers. It has no business plan. Currently, BioMedNet has 30,000 members, 20% of whom are medical scientists, 75% are biologists, and 5% are publishers. Most of the publishers are already active in elec- tronic publishing; few of the senior pub- lishers are BioMedNet users. They are receiving 1,200 new members per week and project that they will have 75,000 by the end of 1996. A typical recent week’s data is shown below:

Information searches Abstracts retrieved from searches 11509 People visiting the site’s shopping mall People visiting discussion groups 5536 Accesses ofthe ’ob exchan e 39 I99

These data show that communities are more interested in discussions, shopping, and jobs than information. BioMedNet is creating an environment (called a club) where suppliers can communicate with members, members can become suppliers, and members can communi- cate with each other. Their business is commercial, scholarly, and societal; revenue streams are multiple and hard to forecast.

Revenues are received from advertisers; the service is free to members. Adver- tisers pay $2000/month for advenising buttons on a gateway page, $1000/nionth for a service page. They can sponsor a job exchange area for $1 5,00O/nionth and can also sponsor search terms for $50/month/word (the sponsor’s ad will appear when the user searches on that word).

Uses of BioMedNet include selling in- formation (articles) for which the pub- lishers fix prices and get statistical usage information in exchange for a 20% commission to BioMedNet, things (books, chemicals, computers, etc.) in a shopping mall environment for which BioMedNet rents “space” and receives a commission on sales, and subscriptions to publications (in the future). The service costs $3 million per year to run; 2/3 of the costs are for people and 1/3 are for equipment and marketing. The largest personnel cost is for customer service; about 50 questions a day are re- ceived. They do not know yet if the service will be profitable.

Things that would be done differently if they were starting over would be to form partnerships by inviting content owners to take an equity position in the company and focusing on markets rather than technology. Delivering communications instead of information would not be changed: one cannot depend on making a profit by charging for information done because most of the value should .go to the publisher or author. Profits are made by creating communities with strength in their members.

Rebecca Lenzini CARL Corporation

ARL (formerly the Colorado Al- liance of Research Libraries) is C now owned by Knight-Ridder

Information. In 1988, CARL developed the UnCover database which now con- tains 17,000 titles and 8 million articles. About 5,000 articles are added every day. The database is multidisciplinary; 51% of it is science, technology, and medicine, 40% is social sciences, and 9% is arts and humanities. It was cre- ated as a cooperative effort of 20 librar- ies. CARL has 120,000 profiled Uncover users worldwide, 40,000 Re- veal subscribers, 4,200 deposit accounts. 24% of its article deliveries are outside the U.S. and Canada. They have deliv- ered over 1 million articles, many of them as Fax or TIFF images (when pub- lishers give permission). They paid $1 million in copyright fees in 1995. The top publisher is Elsevier; they also are willing to work with author groups such as the National Writers Union.

CARL’S first business model called for free access to the database and transac- tion pricing for documents. They made a strong attempt to reach end users. This model was fine tuned by providing a value-added option for libraries by al- lowing them to link CARL’S collection to their local holdings and instituting customer-focused commands in the user interface. Today’s model is called Sub- sidized Umediated Ordering (SUMO) and is a win-win proposition for all. It incorporates disintermediated use along with institutional sponsorships which show links to holdings but give the in- stitution options to block orders by price, presence in the local collection, user

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type, or volume. There are also options to refer orders to third parties for interli- brary loan. The benefits of this model are that it is free to the user, and the local sponsor is able to promote the system and train its own users.

Each installation must be customized and tailored to the user’s environment; flexibility is the key. When the UnCover service is introduced into an organiza- tion, usage tends to rise. Users tend to avoid interlibrary loans and place their orders directly.

CARL’S experience at Louisiana State University (LSU) is interesting. LSU embarked on a program to cancel :serial subscriptions, replacing them with Un- Cover access. They obtained core lists of journals for retention from faculty members and introduced SUMO. ‘There was little overlap between the jomals the faculty wanted to retain and those that users ordered from, which shows that intermediaries usually do not know what users want, and sometimes even end users do not h o w what titles they want. LSU believes that its core journal collection meets only half of its needs.

CARL believes that information sliould be as accessible as possible, and as many paths to it as necessary should be cre- ated. They therefore favor multiple sup- plier relationships; Uncover is accessible through OCLC, Physician’s Home Page, Dialog, BioMedNet, Physi- cians Online, and several other systems. More partnerships are coming.

Nancy Knight CD-MAX

ajor questions in electronic publishing are who is using M the information, what infor-

mation is being used, how is information being used, and when is it being used. Metering software provides the answers to these questions. CD-MAX is a serv- ice provider to information providers, aggregators, and software companies, offering metering, security, and transac- tion processing services. Applications for CD-ROMs have been developed; an Internet application (Net-MAX) will be released in the fourth quarter of 1996. CD-MAX registers customers, author- izes product use, tracks billable events, and bills for transactions. Their core business is billing on behalf of their customers; end users can either prepay for information or pay after the fact.

Metering technology identifies specific events and provides a mechanism to re- port them to information providers and end users. It is much like long distance telephone service, supermarket scanning, or automatic toll collection on highways. Metering makes possible tracking how customers use information in a variety of ways: 0 What files are searched, 0 What terms result in “no matches

0 Actual query terms used, 0 Indexing features used, 0 Image features used, and 0

found” searches,

What reports and comments are used by customers.

Implications of metering technology for information providers include the ability to refine existing products, create new

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products, and use the ultimate market research tool. Information providers’ customers can receive detailed usage re- ports, establish chargeback systems, and receive promotional discounts. A major issue is privacy. We must protect per- sonal data; however, customers are usu- ally willing to exchange privacy for economic benefits. License agreements can deal with privacy issues and create favorable business decisions.

Benefits of metering: 0 New tools for information providers

and customers, 0 Information providers know their

customers better, 0 Marketing and sales support are en-

hanced, and Products can be better tailored to customers’ needs.

John Barnes OCLC

is in the process of dealing disintermediation. It cre- an initial product, Elec-

tronic Journals Online (EJO), in 1992 as a joint venture with AAAS and began producing the Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials. This journal was wail- able through OCLC’s Guidon 1.0 inter- face and was produced from SGML- tagged data obtained from AAAS Its objectives were to demonstrate the vi- ability of “print-qualified” electronic journals and to distribute large numbers of academic journals efficiently. The product won many awards, and the pro- gram was expanded to include other journals and electronic versions of print journals. New interfaces for the Macin- tosh and the Web were created. Eventu-

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ally, 48 journals were accessible through the Web.

OCLC’s business model is that of a service provider to publishers, offering data conversion, sales and marketing support, an interface to customers, and auxilliary services such as archives and CD-ROMs. EJO revenues were to be obtained from publishers in the form of production, page, and subscription fees. This was not the right business model for OCLC. They conducted about 300 interviews with users in December 1995, with the following results:

83% of access were via the Internet, 60% of these used the Web. 57% of the usage was browsing. 60% of users used only one or two terms in their searches. 91% of users said that the ability to search every word was not important. 73% of the users would have been satisfied with searching only the ci- tation and abstract. 76% of users wanted to search a collection of journals rather than a single title. There was a strong desire for searches to deliver results from titles not subscribed to by the organiza- tion.

From this survey, OCLC concluded that they should offer basic searching and browsing of a large collection of journals via the Web. In assessing their EJO product, they looked at the following:

Library Needs Critical mass

Aggregation

Integration Simplicity Collection development

control Archives

- EJO Capabilities Only 48 journals on

several subjects Oriented to single

journal titles Free standing Many advanced features Mostly available

Tied to active subscriptions

The conclusion was that EJO was not meeting the needs of its primary market (libraries) and was more geared to indi- viduals. Growth was restricted b:y the requirement for SGML data and high costs. It did not leverage OCLC’s core competencies in aggregation and ar- chiving. The Web was challenging the whole publishing equation, and the risk of disintermediation was high. OCLC therefore decided to redesign the product and focus on building the best service it could for libraries. It ceased activities that did not add value and began to lev- erage its core strengths. The redesigned service was simplified and integrated with other OCLC services, and the eco- nomic model was changed to one sup- ported by libraries. Relationships with publishers were simplified to make it easier for them to participate.

The new product became First Szarch Electronic Collection Online. It is a Web-based centralized service providing access to a large archival journal collec- tion. Instead of SGML, it uses standard “pre-produced” data in the PDF fixmat most commonly used by publishers. OCLC is providing aggregation, integra- tion, and archival services; the libraries define their electronic journal collections and control access to them.

The new business model does not re- quire publishers to pay any fees to par- ticipate. The publisher or its agent licenses the content to libraries. OCLC provides subscription and document de- livery services and markets access to the libraries, The libraries pay an access fee based on the size of their electronic jour- nal collection and the number of users accessing it, and they maintain control over collection development and migra- tion fiom print to electronic subscrip- tions. This pricing strategy decouples access accounting fiom content licensing and access pricing from content pricing. It is value-based, flexible, predictable, and allows libraries to migrate to elec- tronic journals at their own pace. It is fair, while rewarding growth. And it al- lows libraries to cut their costs because EJO access fees are less than those for archiving printed materials or local elec- tronic storage. Both libraries and pub- lishers benefit from an electronic journal service designed specifically to met the needs of libraries.

OCLC learned the following lessons fiom this exercise: 0 Technological advances and evolv-

ing market needs can quickly lead to an indefensible position. It is easy to stray from one’s primary mission through a desire to diversifjl.

0 One must constantly re-evaluate where value is being added and be willing to make changes where there is no added value.

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CHAIN REACTIONS

David Pullinger Macmillan Magazines

he printed journal is an artifact belonging to a particular technol- T ogy (printing and mailing). Its

practices (style, refereeing, etc.) hiive a particular place within the social sphere of research. The journal rests 011 the postal system, but there is no reason it should remain the way it is.

Scholarly journals are part of scientific communication with the following fea- tures:

Socially, they provide a view of who is doing what in one’s field @articularly true for chemists), where the field is going over time, who is getting grants, who v~ould make a good Ph.D. examiner, what meetings are scheduled, and what jobs are available. Some of this in- formation can be found just by looking at the table of contents. Current awareness and alerting al- lows researchers to find what is new in their field and what their peers think is important. The content is the information itself which provides a record of scientific endeavor. Journal brand names are very important and lend credibility to the content. Journals describe the new products that support research. Book reviews in journals tell re- searchers what their peers are writing and direct them to useful teaching texts. The journal publishing industry pro- motes scientific endeavor to the pub1 ic.

15

Nature is a primary scientific journal. As a product, it contains editorials, news, correspondence, book reviews, articles, scientific correspondence, let- ters, job listings, product reviews, meet- ing reviews, ads for upcoming meetings, display ads, and errata. (Some journals have most of these elements, and some have only a few.) Users want all ele- ments of a journal in an electronic data- base, but some information providers only include certain parts. Many provid- ers have not thought about content issues and what people want (for example, how errata should be handled and charged for).

There are many journals and many types of journals; the traditional role of some (or all) of them will change. Many sci- entists like the whole picture, so the in- tegration of journal elements will not vanish. The market has a wide variety of expectations. The US is about half the market for many journals because of the preponderance of corporate headquarters and much government funding. It also has a high expectation of free informa- tion. In the UK, journals are mainly in university libraries, and local business people are charged for searches (up to E50-80 each). In Germany, the trend is toward personal subscriptions to jour- nals. Document delivery and copyright prices have nothing to do with the value of the information; they relate to over- head and costs. Many publishers must deal with a large number of manuscripts (Nature rejects up to 95% of the manu- scripts it receives).

The scholarly journal is both an archival and a communication vehicle. Both of these functions cannot be sustained, so

this model will change. Services will need to be differentiated; today’s idea of what a journal is must change. Paper will remain the best medium fo:: the major journals for i2t least a decade.

Issues for the future of scholarly pub- lishing include:

Focus on the business. Publishers are in the business of selecting the best research, editing it, and cornmu- nicating it, not processing and deliv- ering copies of articles. Contracts with third parties. Pub- lishers need to learn the issues. Dif- ferent strategies are necessary for different public constituencies. Aggregation. Scientists want to search across journals and across publishers. Although publishers are beginning to collaborate and build delivery systems, there will always be a need for intermediary services. Advertising. By putting only articles in databases, viewers lose the adver- tisements. Will the advertisers be pleased? Journals must decide how to retain advertising revenue. Pricing models are still being ex- plored. It is necessary to corsider both magazine imd journal aspects of scholarly publishing and serve authors, advertisers, users (both sub- scribers and occasional users).

Susan Philips Texshare Consortium

exshare is an academic library consortium in Texas which re- T ceives legislative funding. It is

four years old and has 52 member li- braries in academic, medical, and legal institutions. Co-managers of the con-

sortium are the University of Texas (UT) at Austin and the AMIGOS library serv- ice. The consortium provides resource sharing, interlibrary loans, and access to online databases. It can be accessed on the Web at http://www. texshare.com. In its first year, the consortium circulated 10,500 items; only two were not returned to the owning library! Cooperative pur- chasing will begin this year.

The UT library is part of Texshare; it has 9 academic, 6 medical, and two teaching hospital libraries in its system. UT funds the hardware and search engine costs of Texshare; member libraries pay their own subscription and maintenance costs. The UT libraries comprise about 1/3 of the Texshare members.

Ongoing funds for the consortium come from library budgets; participation in any project is optional. Benefits of participa- tion are predictable costs from year to year, access to both local and remote host sites, centralized billing, and allo- cation of costs across all members.

Key factors in technological decisions for the consortium are cost, ability to network, quality of information content, ease of information capture, availability of all standard Internet protocols, and functionality of the search engine. De- sign of the interface is rarely a key ele- ment.

In conducting negotiations with vendors, deadlines cannot be tolerated by consor- tia because they take a long time to make decisions. Many vendors have unrealis- tic expectations; they cannot expect con- sortia to do their marketing for them. They need to be willing to accept less than full participation by consortium

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members, recognize the value of their information, and set prices realistically. Consortia are receptive to reasonable costs for value received and vendors who are flexible in their participation requirements and their options for lim- ited or unlimited access. Vendors need to give consortia adequate time to con- sider their proposals and maintain open and honest communication with 1 hem. Free test periods, collection of usage statistics, and capability for user authen- tication and passwords are other items that are attractive to consortia.

Barbara Spiegelman Westinghouse Energy Library

nformation vendors need to do a re- ality check; library budgets are I shrinking while demands for infor-

mation and demands on library staff are increasing. The information needed by corporations today is becoming more complex; about half is in science and technical areas and half is in business. Although many corporations are moving to the Windows NT platform, multiple legacy systems still exist. The transition period is difficult and long. Corporate Intranets are growing, but they are exten- sive and complex.

The role of the library is changing as the Internet grows. Librarians are becoming advisers and educators; at Westinghouse, they wrote the corporate Internet guide- lines and chair the resources team. They also provide training and education on Internet use and do searches.

Some of the requirements of corporate librarians are:

Internet-based or dialup services for document delivery and no CD-ROMs (CD-ROMs require searching twice, once on the CD- ROM and once on the online system to obtain the current in- formation). Products must be developed so they can be used immediately. Print products are still good because they can be read in cars or on airplanes. Networked clientlserver options with fast turnaround time, high quality content and reasonable prices. All searches are now done on deadlines, half of them in four hours or less, so net- worked products are important. Vendors should realize that their users are smart and not “dumb down” their products. It is not always necessary to provide total quality; products that perform and satisfy most needs are ade- quate. Information is needed in a variety of ways. No corporate librarian will be held hostage to a single supplier. They need options, al- ternatives, and a fall-back posi- tion. Corporate librarians are willing to consider information that is partly covered by advertising revenues. They are continuing to provide intermediary services be- cause complex searches require them, so vendors must stay flexi- ble, be willing to adjust prices, and be prepared to offer creative pricing (such as selling their products as a system so that capital budgets can be used to purchase them). Corporations do not run with negative budgets!

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Seat-based pricing will not work in the corporate environment; corporations will pay for actual, not potential use. Their custom- ers understand connect fees and per-search pricing. It is impor- tant to be able to track usage. Many corporations are global and multifuncticunal. They move people and services where they are needed. Worldwide access to information is required; corpora- tions buy anywhere now, not just in the US. Publishers need to adjust their copyright expectations. Libraries object to paying for print joL!mals and then paying again when they search them online. Archival versions of journals and software are needed. If a pub- lisher cancels production of an electronic journal, how will the library keep what it has already purchased? End user searching is not new; they have been doing for over 12 years! It is not taking over in corporations; if you are paying an engineer to search for infiorma- tion instead of doing engineering work, you are not getting your money’s worth! Most scientific and technical researchers like to have information professionals do their searching for them.

Future trends in the corporate library world:

0 Corporations with multiple li- braries are consolidating and centralizing. There is a move to virtual librar- ies because of the cost of space to store large archival colleclions.

0

Back lists are being converted to electronic media. Many books from the 1930s and 1940s are still valuable and have become classics; they should be put into electronic form.

8 Scheduling is becoming flexible so that service people are avail- able all the time.

WRAPUP

Ron Dunn Information Industry Association

oints to agree with from the pres- entations: P

Successful companies will be those who focus on customer value, edu- cation, and training of employees. Information is still a people-to- people business. We need unimpeded access to infor- mation, access to multiple media, reasonable pricing, and a way to find needles in the haystack. Aggregators are currently being much maligned, but they will assume the role of organizing the Web. Editorial quality still matters. Who will filter and fix the piles of trash that are retrieved from the Internet? We need to solve the copyright pro- tection issue to get content providers to participate in the Internet and the electronic marketplace. The Internet is about communication, not information. One of its major goals should be to build a commu- nity of users as an asset. Intermediaries do not know what end users want, which will lead to risks of disintermediation.

18

Privacy concerns are increasing in the electronic world and will become a major issue. Proprietary platforms do not work. We need open access. The most important journals will continue to exist in print form. Print is a terminal technology and cannot be improved upon. Secondary serv- ices will be important in referring people to primary material. In the real world, the user base is not ready to adopt new technology. The most successful companies adapt to many platforms, including old ones. They deliver what people want in the way they want it.

Points to disagree with from the presen- tations: 0 There will be massive disinterme-

diation. It is easy to see that this will happen with information on travel, weather, etc., but disintermediation will not occur with serious infcmna- tion applications. Barriers include lack of coherence, questions of authenticity (especially now that eve- ryone can be a publisher; for exam- ple, CompuServe has 75,000 personal home pages on its system), rampant quality problems (“good enough” is not good enough, espe- cially in critical areas like medicine), and the archival value of some in- formation. Society is reorganizing for the digital age. The popular description of the Internet is that it is a new paradigm, a “tectonic shift,” a “tsunami of change”, and revolutionary. But the technology is not there yet; only about 40% of US households have PCs, and many are not communica- tion-enabled. There is no educa-

19

tional system to get people ready for the Internet. People do not adapt as fast as we think they do, and many do not want to spend time on the In- ternet. Copyright is absolutely essential in the digital world. The current print model works, allows fair use, and is well understood. If it does not apply, there will not be any electronic commerce.

We need change leading to progress. It is clear that we will be in a period of high anxiety for a while. As Mark Twain said, “I’m all in favor of progress. It’s change that worries me!”

Jeff Hoerle

Bennett Lincoff Frederick Bowes

'' Janice Kirkwood David Yullinger

ASIDIC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (1996-1997)

President: Randy Marcinko PHONE: 41 5-626-4636 Information Canada, Ltd. FAX: 4 15-626-4652 785 Golden Gate Ave., No.403 San Francisco, CA 94 102

E-Mail: rmarcink@ix.netcom.com

Immediate Past President: Maureen C. Kelly BIOSIS 2100 Arch St. Philadelphia, PA 19 103

Tom Hogan Information Today, Inc. 143 Old Marlton Pike Medford, NJ 08055-8758

Rick Noble OCLC, Inc. 6565 Frantz Road

Member-at-Large & Treasurer:

Member-at-Large & Secretary:

Dublin, OH 43017-3395 Mem ber-at-Large:

Ruth Koolish Information Sources, Inc. P.O. Box 8 120 Berkeley, CA 94707-8 120

John C. Harned Bedford Advisors, Inc. 160 Federal St., 15* Floor Boston, MA 02 1 10

Mem ber-at-Large:

PHONE: 215-587-481 1 FAX: 215-587-2704 E-Mail: mckelly@mail.biosis.org

PHONE: 609-654-6266 FAX: 609-654-4309 E-Mail: hoganiti@aol.com

PHONE: 614-764-6096 FAX: 614-764-0740 E-Mail: nobler@coclc.org

PHONE: 5 10-525-6220 FAX: 5 10-525- 1568 E-Mail: rkoolish(@aol.com

PHONE: 617-330-8167 FAX: 617-330-8130 E-Mail:

ASIDIC SECRETARIAT

Jeanette Webb ASIDIC P.O. Box 8 105 Athens, GA 30603

PHONE: 706-542-6820 FAX: 706-542-0349 E-Mail: jwebb@uga.cc.uga.edu

ASIDIC COMMITTEE CHAIRS (1996-7) Standards Finance Publications Membership Long Range Planning Nominations

Bruce Kiesel (BIOSIS) Dan Jones (Newsbank, lnc.:) Donald Hawkins (InfoResources Corporation) Ruth Koolish (Information Sources, Inc.) Bill Bartenbach (Engineering Information, Inc ) Maureen Kelly (BIOSIS)

Access Innovations, Inc. American Economic Association American Institute of Physics American Petroleum Institute American Psychological Association American Society of Health System Pharmacists American Watenvorks Association AT&T BIOSIS C.A.B. International Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Canadian Institute for Scientific & Technical Information Chemical Abstracts Service Defense Technical Information Center Department of Energy Ofice of Scientific & Technical Information Dement Incorporated EBSCO Publishing EBSCOdoc Engineering Infomation, Inc. Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe Forbes, Inc. Georgia Institute of Technology Library JEEmJSPEC lFI/Plenum Data Corporation Information Canada, Ltd. Information Express Information International Associates, Inc. Infomation Sources, Inc. Information Today, Inc. Infoseek Gorp. Institute of Paper Science & Technology Institute for Scientific Information Knight-Ridder Information, Inc. Lexis-Nexis Library Corporation Manning & Napier Information Services Materials Information-ASM International Micromedia Ltd. Microsoft Corporation National Library of Medicine National Science Council-Science and Technical Idormation Center National Technical Information Service NERAC, Inc.

Marjorie M. K. I-llava Drucilla Ekwurzel Timothy Ingoldsby Mary Beth Campau Dennis Auld Dwight R. Tousignaut Kurt M. Keeley Vacant Maureen Kelly Andrea Powell Theodore Cark Edward Kipp Suzan Brown Barbara Lesser William L. Buchanan Marilee Winiarslti Joseph Tragert Sam Pointer Bill Bartenbach G. F. Schultheiss Anne Mintz Miriam A. Drake Michele Day Hany Allcock Randy Marcinko Bruce Antelman Bonnie Carroll Ruth K. Koolish Thomas H. Hogan Steven T. Kirsch Robert G. Patterson Michael J. Tansey Barry Richman Corilee Christou Robert Asleson Mike Weiner Mark Furneaux Robert Gibson Katie Hover Lois Ann Colaianni Ching-Lung Liu Walter Finch Daniel U. Wilde

Newsbank, Inc. Newsnet, Inc. NIOSH OCLC, Inc. OVID Technologies, Inc. Personal Library Software Public Affairs Information Service Sociological Abstracts, Inc. Sport Information Centre-Canada University of California Library Automation University of Iowa Drug Information Service U. S. Patent & Trademark Office

Daniel S. Jones Andrew S. Elston Vivian Morgan Larry Olszewski Janice Kirkwoocl Matthew Koll Barbara Preschel Miriam Chall Gilles Chiasson Clifford A. Lynch Hazel H. Seaba Edward M. Johnson

Aubergine Information Services Bedford Advisors Copyright Clearance Center Eagle Communicatons Elsevier Science Publishers ERIC Processing & Reference Facility Inforonics, Inc. InfoResources Corporation Japan Association for International Chemical Information Next Wave Consulting Ohio Resource Center LISH Open Source Solutions, Inc. SEMATECH University of California Berkeley NISEE Wilmer Cutler & Pickering

Reva Basch John C. Harned Isabella Hinds Margaret Russo H. V. Ainscougli Ted Brandhorst Lawrence F. Buckland Donald T. Hawkins Osamu Hara Deborah L. Wiley Mary Binion Robert D. Steele Beverly Isackes Jeanette Zernekt: Michael P. Perglsl