The topic today is an exciting one, and I congratulate the organizers on their foresight in addressing it. It is nearly twenty years since Lancaster first prognosticated the paperless library. While none of us believes in "paperless" any more, the "Library without walls" concept is becoming a reality, and we are all faced with how we amalgamate electronic forms of information into our library services, no matter whom we are serving, or how large, or small, our Library is.
Is the future with us-are journal articles written for and used through an electronic carrier a separate segment in the lives of scientists, publishers and librarians? If in present terms we continue on the path into the future, where will it lead to? Assuming all academic information is collected and disseminated only by electronic means are we professionally equipped to deal with it? What is the role of the author? Will he or she get unbiased peer review? Will they index, abstract and categorize their articles? How will the citation process work? Will they, the authors, get recognition for their labours? What is the role of the publisher and the librarian?
The triangle which is the topic of this discussion is the one which exists between the scholar, the publisher and the Library. There are other players who have roles in the interplay between these three. (Figure 1 Illustrates.) Editors, reviewers (including peer reviewers), and library suppliers obviously have positions somewhere in that triangle, but what I propose to do this afternoon is concentrate on the shape of that triangle, particularly the nexus between the three entities as it has developed to the present, and look at ways in which it is under challenge (or threat) as a consequence of new ways of doing things under the influence of technological innovation.
I have now been a library consultant at ALDIS for two years and in that time have been actively participating in the introduction of image databases on a large scale to Australian libraries. Previously, I have been employed as a researcher at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, looking at the provision of information in different formats, and in different media. I have formal qualifications in both information management and marketing.
Libraries within the higher education sector are experiencing continued growth in student numbers, particularly postgraduate students, an increasing number of research concentrations being introduced, the incorporation of information skills and research skills training into both undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as the combined effect of escalating serials inflation and the increasing number of new journal startups outstripping acquisitions budgets.
