Access to telematics facilities in the Eastern Caribbean
In 1994, ICSTI joined UNESCO and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in a project to improve access to scientific and technical information in developing countries by making use of new telecommunication systems. In 1995 under contract to UNESCO, ICSTI carried out an assessment of the UNESCO/ITU project on delivering telematics services to the Caribbean region and made recommendations as to the project's feasibility and success and to ICSTI's contribution. Later in the same year, ICSTI was asked by UNESCO to develop an evaluation methodology for the project, to which a number of other organizations were becoming committed.
As a result of these preliminary studies and consultations among the parties involved, the project was officially launched in February 1996. It is sponsored by six organizations: the Commonwealth of Learning, ITU, the Pan American Health Organization, the UN Development Program, UNESCO and ICSTI. Three countries - Barbados, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines - were selected as pilot countries for the project. They were chosen because they possess Public Telecommunication Operators with a strong commitment to providing access to information through Internet and a substantial user community in the sectors selected for the project, namely health, environment and education.
There will be two training sessions in each of the three countries to provide guidance on accessing the Internet and specialized databases. This will be followed by a one year period of experimental use of the telematics services. Several ICSTI members will provide preferential access to databases. Under contract to UNESCO, ICSTI will conduct the evaluation of the pilot project.
Networking project
This project was prompted in 1994 by the rapid growth in the use of the Internet. It started with a survey conducted among ICSTI members to get some insight concerning their use of networks, their position on questions of privacy, security and copyright, and their suggestions concerning pilot projects which ICSTI members might undertake to develop the exchange of information.
The first outcome of this survey was the development by the Canada Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) of an ICSTI Web site which was launched on the World Wide Web in February 1996. The ICSTI pages describe the objectives, membership and activities of the organization and provide hypertext links to a number of relevant Web sites, in particular those of ICSTI members and of the services they offer.
The URL is: http://www.icsti.nrc.ca/icsti
The FORUM Editorial Board has been appointed as Editorial Board for the ICSTI Web site and will examine various proposals of ICSTI Web services intended both for members and the wider community of STI users.
The last two years have seen considerable development in the use of networks and the survey conducted in 1994 is largely outdated. It has therefore been agreed to implement a new survey and to extend it to users of STI services on the Web.
Graphics project
The objective of this project is to measure the effectiveness with which graphical and pictorial information is conveyed electronically, and to develop a standard test to assess the efficiency of the more than 50 protocols currently available.
The project will involve categorizing graphical and pictorial information and for each category:
(i) identifying representative examples and assessing their limitations
(ii) identifying standards of efficiency in representing the information
(iii) assessing the efficiency of alternative procedures and protocols.
The output might be a users' guide to be made available on the ICSTI Web site.
International Classification Scheme for Physics
The current edition of the Scheme, the third in a series that began in 1975, was published in 1991. Prepared by the American Institute of Physics, FIZ Karlsruhe, INIST and INSPEC, it is bilingual, English-French, and like the previous editions is a four level, hierarchical scheme.
Since then many changes have been made to reflect the continuous development of physics research and it is now thought appropriate to consider a new international scheme. It seems particularly relevant to do so since hierarchical classification schemes are now used for many purposes beyond their original concept as indexing and retrieval tools for journal articles. They are found in editorial offices as guides for referee selection, in book catalogues of some major publishers, and as devices to help sort papers into conference sessions.
The American Institute of Physics which since 1991 has issued annual revisions of its Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS), itself based on the ICSTI scheme, has offered to lead this international effort towards the production of a fourth edition and has invited 19 organizations to participate. Mid 1997 is the target for completion of the work.
Impact of full-text document delivery on subscriptions
Based on the findings of a small-scale preliminary study, the purpose of this project is to obtain a more sophisticated understanding of demands for scientific information. The aims are:
A key objective is that all data will be treated in strict confidence and no information on actual users will be revealed under any circumstances.
Several ICSTI members are participating in this project which is led by The British Library.
ICSTI contribution to the ISSN Register
Following a proposal from the ISSN International Centre, ICSTI will provide information on which abstracting and indexing services cover a given serial publication present in the ISSN Register. This information will enrich the ISSN Register and will increase the visibility of the databases. In addition, matching of ISSNs in the A&I databases and in the ISSN Register may detect anomalies and permit correction of records. The proposed action plan foresees that information will be available to final users at the end of 1997 on ISSN Compact, the ISSN Register on CD-ROM.
As a result of this collaboration, the ISSN Register could be used not only for identifying serial publications, but also as a platform pointing to specialized services provided in the field of serials.
Dr. Norman Paskin is Director of Information Technology Development for Elsevier Science, part of the Reed-Elsevier group, based in Oxford, U.K. This article is based on a presentation made to the ICSTI General Assembly in May 1996. Owing to the continuing work in development of identifiers, this represents a snapshot view as at mid-1996 and the author welcomes comments and updates.
Introduction
The past year has seen considerable activity in discussions about item identification in the world of electronic publishing. The general aim of item identification, particularly in the new paradigm of electronic publication, is to facilitate the retrieval, exchange, re-use and processing of individual items [1].
What is an item?
Discussion of identifiers has been particularly active in (but not wholly restricted to) the world of STM (scientific, technical and medical) publishing. In this case, an item is some unit of scientific information; there are three hierarchical levels of such items:
An obvious item which can be identified in a library environment is a cluster of documents (items) represented by some physical manifestation: a particular journal, a book containing several contributions, or even a database. That cluster can be given an identification label of some sort. Within that cluster, there will be individual documents; these may be single chapters in a book, individual papers written by a scientific author, or some other form: one can envisage a map or a compilation of data being treated as a document. The term "document like object" (DLO) has been used to refer to this generic concept; we do not need to define a DLO closely but we know what it looks like - typically it will have some text based intellectually meaningful content. As we move to an electronic publishing environment it may well become possible and useful to separately identify components of a document, since in a hypertext environment it is easy to conceive of links to individual tables within a document, or the same figure used in several different documents. In this article I discuss the level of the single document, but the context of other levels above and below is relevant.
How many items?
In order to design an identification scheme that will work we need to know how many items we need to identify. One approach is to take a global view: the Library of Congress is almost 30 Terabytes (30 x 1012 bytes), but it is not clear how many documents, by our definition, this includes; a text database like Lexis-Nexis includes about 600 million items; the Internet about 50 million smaller documents in the form of Net pages - but all these figures include much material not relevant to STM publishing. A more accurate (but conservative) approach is to look at the world of current scientific documents, i.e. journal articles: the ISI (Institute of Scientific Information) Journal Citation Reports database carries around 670,000 documents per annum (from 6000 journal titles); assuming this represents about 75% of the significant material we need to identify (Elsevier Science estimate), and knowing that this figure is growing at 2.5% per year, we conclude that at least one million documents per year need to be discernable in any comprehensive identification scheme covering STM materials. (This assumes one version of each document; there is a potential complication in electronic publishing, which may influence these numbers, namely versions: envisage a document existing on a server as a preprint, as a paper submitted for publication, as an accepted paper, and as a paper with comments from readers... there is no clear test or definition of when we should be recognising and identifying distinct versions. Further, one can imagine active documents which are effectively applications invoked by each user ...)
Simple and compound identifiers
A useful distinction is between simple and compound identifiers. A simple identifier is a "dumb" pointer or label, not intended to carry explicitly any additional information; it merely serves as a unique label. An analogy is with the serial number of a piece of equipment (note: it may well be possible to infer some additional information from a dumb identifier - e.g. given a telephone number and a knowledge of area codes one can work out the city of the caller - but this is neither intended nor necessary for the user). A compound identifier by contrast is designed explicitly to carry not only a pointer identifying a document, but also some explicit meaning or interpretable information about the document (metadata); in particular information about intellectual property rights. Both simple and compound identifiers could achieve the same end of being useful in a commercial environment but with differing consequences: a simple identifier could be used to link to a table of look up data or a central registry, where the metadata is held; a compound identifier removes the need for central registries but makes the identifier much more complex.
Which identifiers are currently used?
Table 1 shows the three levels discussed above (clusters, documents themselves and document components) and some corresponding available identifiers. For individual documents there are a range of current identifiers which cover specific document types [2, 6-8]: Biblid (Bibliographic identifier), a formal ISO standard for articles; superseded by the current SICI (Serial Item and Contribution Identifier) which is similar; and a number of ISO standards for specific documents, e.g. International Standard Report Number (a useful identifier which in theory could be extended to wider application), ISMN, ISRC, etc. The Internet URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is not a true identifier but a location specifier. Not surprisingly nearly all identifiers in current use are simple identifiers at the document or cluster level. No common standards are in use for component identification.
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Which recent or new identifiers are being discussed?
Publisher Item Identifier (PII)
The PII is a simple identifier, which was drawn up by a group of scientific publishers in 1995. In so doing, they asked what publishers wanted from such an identifier and stated a number of principles:
PII meets all of the above-mentioned principles. The PII is here and usable now; it is not expected to become a formal standard, but those using it expect that it will become a part of some future compound identifier scheme, or at least be compatible with them. As currently described, PII identifies documents, and particularly those within existing publication types (ISBN, ISSN); it is in principle capable of extension to other types and to the document component level, but no "rules" for such extension have been set out.
Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI)
1996 revised version
In 1991 the SICI was defined by SISAC (the US based Serials Industry Advisory Committee) as a variable length code, which identified issues of serial publications ("items") and articles found in a serial title ("contributions"); the SICI refers to physical (printed) issues, page numbers and serials and became a formal standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.56-1991). (Note that in SICI terminology an "item" is a cluster of documents, that is a serial issue; in PII terms an item is an individual document, which SICI calls a contribution). In January this year a revised version was proposed as a draft replacement (referred to here as the 1996 SICI); this has recently been approved and will now be issued as a formal 1996 NISO standard in September. The final version may have minor changes compared to the draft [10], and a maintenance agency is to be assigned. NISO will also submit the new SICI as a proposed ISO standard. The 1996 SICI has some significant changes which are considerable improvements to its potential use for wider item identification uses: these include the ability to specify the medium of publication, and to describe derivative parts (components). Figure 2 shows the overall structure of the 1996 SICI. An important new feature is the Code Structure Identifier (CSI), which can have one of three values - depending upon this the actual format of the SICI can take three forms:
PII and 1996 SICI as complementary identifiers
The PII and 1996 SICI are wholly compatible and in some usages complementary (as explicitly recognised in the draft "199X" SICI standard [10], which includes an example of a PII used within a SICI in CSI 3 form). PII and SICI attempt to meet different needs: to quote the SICI standard, the SICI "is intended primarily for use by those members of the bibliographic community involved in the use or management of serial titles and their contributions"; a SICI may be assigned retrospectively; a SICI is primarily an aid to finding existing published articles or issues; a SICI operates essentially on the existing (published) base of serials literature. The PII is intended primarily for use by publishers and customers such as abstracting services; it operates only on that material where a PII is assigned by the publisher (from 1996 at the earliest unless the publisher assigns these retrospectively ); the PII is intended for assignment on pre-published material and on future published material in any form (including electronic-only). In essence: the PII identifies the virtual article, and the SICI (in CSI 2 form) identifies the article in physical form in an issue or other medium. A publisher may use both the 1996 SICI and PII (either separately or combined in CSI 3 format) in his published materials, depending upon the required function and recipient. If the same article appears in two forms (e.g. in print and on a CD ROM version), that article will have the same PII in both cases, but could have either identical or different SICIs depending on the approach taken by the coder. The PII mechanism can also be applied to non-recurring items (in particular, book contributions), whereas SICI is restricted to serials.
At the time the PII was conceived, only the original 1991 SICI format was available and that was not useful as an electronic identifier. Now, the CSI 3 code structure allows the same flexibility as the PII itself. If the 1996 SICI is widely adopted as a standard, it seems clear that the two will exist harmoniously and perhaps converge for some uses.
Internet identifiers
Both PII and SICI are from the world of traditional publishing. Anyone who uses the Internet will recognise URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), which have some of the features of identifiers; however a URL is in fact not an identifier of a specific document since it identifies the machine location where that document happens to be: if the document moves, the URL will not find it, and as Internet users know, the URL of a document can change. This problem has been recognised for quite some time. One proposal which is an intermediate step towards a solution is a PURL (persistent URL) [11]; effectively, the URL is kept the same to the outside world and any changes made to the actual location are translated in a look up table or "resolver". This PURL scheme is in use on a small scale pilot basis.
The more structured long term approach to this problem involves the creation of a Uniform Resource Name [12]; as this implies, it is a fixed label for a document, irrespective of its location. A location and a document name together would form a Uniform Resource Identifier. There is also a suggestion to add to such an identifier metadata such as copyright ownership etc., forming a Uniform Resource Citation [13]. Effectively this would create a form of compound identifier on the Internet.
A further relevant recent initiative is the W3 Consortium's Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) [20]. Designed principally to address the question of controlling access rights to web pages, PICS provides for a metadata label to be associated with a URL. PICS does not define or give attributes to these labels, and the system is therefore capable in principle of other uses if an appropriate attribute is defined.
Digital Object Identifier proposal
Earlier this year an American Association of Publishers (AAP) consultant outlined the idea for what was initially called a Uniform File Identifier. In March the AAP released a request for proposals [14] for a five year contract for a Digital Object Identifier - a naming system, directory operation, database design and technical support to "develop and maintain a system whereby individual objects can be identified by unique identifiers [and] enable and ensure the application of such a system on an international basis".
As the DOI proposal is still in gestation it is not clear how this would relate to SICI, and other identification schemes; clearly the scope of the proposed DOI is wider (intellectual property rights using an identifier basis), but there would be obvious advantages in building upon existing standards. In the original presentation in Washington, the AAP stated that "the AAP has no compelling desire to create such a thing anew if there is any existing mechanism [that] could better serve this role". It will be extremely interesting to see what responses are received to this request (eight replies had been received to the initial tender at the closing date) and how the DOI idea develops.
International Standard Work Code proposal
In 1994, the STM group of publishers formed a task force to look at information identifiers in the electronic environment. One of the points which emerged from that study was that the world of music already has several schemes in place to control and monitor recordings and performance rights, and that the STM world might learn from that experience. Recently IFRRO (the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations) have taken up this suggestion in collaboration with BIEM (Bureau International des Sociétés Gérant les Droits d'Enregistrement et de Reproduction Mécanique = International Bureau of Societies for the Management of Recording and Mechanical Reproduction Rights)/CISAC (Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Auteurs et Compositeurs = International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers). The ISWC is a proposal [15] to extend the existing ISMN (which is an ISO standard [8] to the text-based world. It is part of a project known as the Common Information System designed to enable global automation of rights management by 2000 within the music and audiovisual industries [16]. An International Numbering Working Group has been set up which includes both STM and AAP, so there will be a strong coordination with activities like PII and DOI.
There are a number of advantages in this approach: the music world approach to metadata is not to encode it in the identifier itself, but to link it via a separate database (a Works Information Database), which seems a sensible approach. The music approach can also accommodate different versions, excerpts, old and new works. There are however still some problems: at a very simple level, the existing ISMN structure is simply not big enough to accommodate a million new items per year; and if a central registry of data is set up there will be considerable management difficulties in ensuring that this does not become a bureaucratic burden and does not impede the publication process. Nonetheless it is an interesting suggestion.
Some other activities
[1] Emerging Standards on the Citation of Electronic Documents: A Status Report. Robert S. Tannehill Jr. (Chemical Abstracts Service)
Information Standards Quarterly, volume 7, number 4, October 1995, pp 1-5. NISO Press
[2] International Standard ISO 9115:1987
Documentation - Bibliographic identification
(biblid) of contributions in serials and books.
[3] International Coden Directory: Introduction International Coden Service, Chemical Abstracts Service, 2540 Olentangy River Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
[4] International Standard ISO 2108:1992
Information and Documentation - International Standard Book Numbering (ISBN)
[5] International Standard ISO 3297:1986
Documentation - International Standard Serial Numbering (ISSN)
[6] International Standard ISO 3901:1986
Documentation - International Standard Recording Code (ISRC)
[7] International Standard ISO 10444:1994
Information and Documentation - International Standard Technical Report Number (ISRN)
and also
ANSI/NISO Z39.23-199X (proposed revision of ANSI/NISO Z39.23-1990)
[8] International Standard ISO 10957:1993
Information and Documentation - International Standard Music Number (ISMN)
[9] Publisher Item Identifier as a means of document identification. 1995.
http://www.elsevier.nl/info/epstand/pii.html
[10] Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI)
ANSI/NISO Z39.56-199X (Version 2) Ballot Draft (A revision of Z39.56-1991); NISO Press, Bethesda MD, 1996
(Also at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/SICI)
[11] PURLs: Persistent Uniform Resource Locators
http://purl.oclc.org/docs/new_purl_summary.html
(and also FAQ at: http://purl.oclc.org/oclc/purl/faq)
[12] Functional Requirements for Uniform Resource Names
Internet Engineering Task Force, Dec 1994
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc.1737.txt
[13] UR* and the Names and Addresses of WWW Objects
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html#uri-spec
[14] Request for Proposal to develop a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Association of American Publishers, issued 13 March 1996.
[15] Proposal for an International Standard Work Code
version 10, September 1995
Godfrey Rust, chairman BIEM/CISAC International Numbering Working Group.
[16] Tools and Standards for protection, control and presentation of data.
Douglas Armati, April 1996
http://www.lmcp.jussieu.fr/icsu/Information/Proc_0296/armati.html
[17] OCLC/NCSA Metadata Workshop Report
S.Weibel, J. Godby, E. Miller, R. Daniel
http://www.oclc.org:5046/oclc/research/conferences/metadata/dublin_core_report.html
[18] You Call It Corn, We Call It Syntax-Independent Metadata for Document-Like Objects. Priscilla Caplan
The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 6, no. 4 (1995): 19-23.
http://info.lib.uh.edu/pacsrev.html
[19] EFFECT 4.0 specification
ftp://ftp.elsevier.nl/TULIP/documentation/Effect40.pdf
[20] Platform for Internet Content Selection
http://www.w3.org/WWW/PICS/
Copyright Elsevier Science 1996
Poland is one of the countries which, despite a relatively low national income, combines rapid economic development with the attainment of a relatively high level of education, one comparable with that in developed countries. The structural and economic changes demand great effort on the part of society and require a general understanding of the transformations the country is undergoing, including the application of scientific achievements in everyday life. The prerequisite for success is the public understanding of the role of science in promoting progress.
In order to improve the situation, in July 1990 a number of leading institutions and organizations set up the Polish Foundation for Science Advancement (PFUN). The founders are the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Society for the Advancement of Sciences and Arts, the Society for the Polish Free University, ORPAN (the Distribution Centre of Scientific Publications) and the Polish Scientific Film Association. The activities of PFUN are supervised by the Ministry of National Education. The Foundation is run by its Council chaired by Professor Witold Karczewski, and the Board is headed by Professor Janusz Haman.
PFUN, a non-governmental organization and the only one of its kind in Poland, promotes activities aimed at the advancement and public understanding of science. Its aim is to promote both the achievements of science in Poland and Polish science abroad. In pursuit of these objectives the Foundation carries out research and studies into the processes and methods of the advancement of science; subsidizes Polish centers abroad, scholarly societies, foundations, and schools engaged in the advancement of science; helps foreign organizations engaged in the promotion of learning; conducts publishing, film and audiovisual projects, lecturing activities; organizes courses, competitions, and studies at various levels; organizes information systems on the achievements of science which might be of interest to the public at large and to the institutions engaged in the advancement of science; helps researchers and other individuals in their efforts to advance and promote science; and grants awards.
PFUN has also established close contacts with international and foreign organizations engaged in the advancement of science with the aim of exchanging know-how and materials.
The funds for carrying out the aims of the Foundation come from donations from Poland and abroad, bequests, legacies, and subsidies; interest on capital investments, bonds, and shares; and income from business activities.
Every year since 1991 the State Committee for Scientific Research has assigned PFUN to coordinate imports of scientific journals and databases to Poland, allocating for this purpose ever increasing financial resources. Thanks to the Foundation's consistent policy and to cooperation with representatives of all ministries and central offices, as well as with Polish librarians, the import of periodicals and databases has been maintained at a satisfactory level. This is achieved through extremely economical management of state funds allocated and the concentration of these periodicals in centers where they are more easily accessible to the largest number of users. Last but not least, the introduction of state-of-the-art multimedia and use of computer investments which were developed in Poland at great cost contribute to the results.
Rationalization and optimalization of imports was made possible thanks to the database on scientific periodicals and other sources of scientific information imported to Poland between 1992-1996, which was compiled by PFUN. The database holds details of 20 413 foreign periodicals and 207 computer databases to be found in 468 scientific and research centers. It is widely used and greatly appreciated by all users, librarians in particular, because they can find in the database not only information on the titles available but also on their distribution in different regions of the country. The database is available on diskette, in a three-volume printed catalogue and on the World Wide Web.
Another important achievement of PFUN in this field is the compilation of a database on all Polish scientific associations. The database contains exhaustive data on the activity of 345 associations with an analysis of their publications. This makes it possible to streamline the financing of the scientific movement from the budget. During the six years of its existence PFUN has made donations totalling $300,000 to over a hundred organizations, institutions and individuals.
Among other activities, the Foundation has been working on the pioneering research project entitled "A System of the Advancement of Science in Poland: Structural Solutions". Also, PFUN, in cooperation with Polish Television, has produced the first Polish language course for foreigners "Uczmy sie polskiego" (Let's Learn Polish), consisting of 15 hours of video film accompanied by a two volume textbook in Polish and English and two cassettes with songs.
The activity of the Foundation, particularly the organization of import of scientific periodicals and the compilation of databases, continues to receive high praise. One of its major tasks in the future will undoubtedly be to continue providing Polish science with sources of scientific information, and all possibilities provided by state-of-the-art multimedia will be used to accomplish it effectively.
One of the main projects envisaged by PFUN is to organize, in cooperation with UNESCO, an international conference on "The Advancement of Science in Post-communist Countries". The conference is intended to be a forum for exchanging views and an attempt to increase cooperation between countries at various stages of development.
The basic aim of the Foundation is to promote recognition that public understanding of science is a principal factor of development and a prerequisite for continued improvement of the prosperity of Polish people. All efforts of PFUN are aimed at the fulfilment of that task.
The conference consisted of five sessions featuring speakers from both developing and industrialized countries. The closing session included the reports of the five session rapporteurs and the conclusion of the President of ICSTI.
J.M. Gopo, Director of the Biotechnology Research Institute in Zimbabwe, described the need for biotechnology information creation and utilization in southern Africa, and listed the features of biotechnology of particular significance. These included the promise of increased scientific knowledge, leading to increased agricultural productivity and economic development for greater job security; development of genetic resources to improve crops, animal production and human health treatments; improvements in the infrastructure and industrial base.
What is needed is clear but how it should be achieved is not. Biotechnology requires long term investment but the economies of most African countries are not strong enough to support such investment, and there is little contribution from the private sector. In most countries there is no accepted legislation dealing with intellectual property rights either.
Nevertheless, Africa, in common with other developing countries, needs to invest in biotechnology and start to fund research. Probably the greatest opportunities lie in the exploitation of genetic resources in which the South is rich and the North is poor. Currently the exploitation is being done by the technology rich North with little benefit returning to the countries of the South from where the original genetic material was obtained.
The development of strong collaborative links between South and North is essential to provide the South with the means to create its own information, i.e. scientists to perform the research, funds for R&D investment, patent offices to record new discoveries etc. This is the only way to prevent "biopiracy" of the South by the North which is so much in evidence at the present time.
Gideon de Wet, Director of Policy Studies at CSIR, South Africa, spoke on the information requirements of the working scientist.
He presented a model for understanding the evolution of the role of science and technology and the development of innovation processes, from "Big Science" for government in the 1940-50's, to National Innovation Policies in the 1990's. He also described the successive shifts in focus which these brought for researchers.
He went on to comment on the innovative process in industry. As the process becomes more complex, more people and more disciplinary fields are involved. At the first level innovation is informal with little or no documentation; at higher levels it becomes increasingly formal involving business plans, project management, system engineering etc. At the same time, the scope and means of communication change and information management becomes a key issue. This results in a class of information which is beyond the individual researcher and which is generated, handled and utilized in specialized ways, for and by groups of people. However, outside this "system" the information loses its value and to a large extent its meaning.
In conclusion the speaker drew attention to the responsibility of the developed world to explore the implications of the techno-scientific world which it is creating, and move forward in those directions which will provide greater efficiency and utility in the future.
William Blankley, Science and Technology Policy Analyst, Foundation for Research Development, South Africa, analyzed the science and technology indicators for Africa. Not surprisingly, the statistical data and the derived ratios/indicators show the weak position of Africa in the research and development sector.
The contribution of Africa to scientific information has been measured through the volume of articles published in the scientific literature and by statistics on North-South and South-South co-authorship. Although the number of publications generated by scientists of the South has increased, the level remains very low, as is the contribution it makes to the "world library". North-South co-authorship is also very low, while South-South co-authorship is almost non-existent.
Publication of research results is a significant indicator of participation of national scientists in research, therefore for Africa its current position is critical. To overcome these problems, and at the same time promote South-South co-authorship, a network of researchers in the South is needed.
The panel discussion focused on identification and characterization of biodiversity in the South. Points raised were language problems, difficulties with legal protection of intellectual property, shortage of engineers and the trend of scientists from southern Africa to publish in European and American journals. A new global initiative on biosystematics, BIONET International and its South Africa regional chapter SAFRINET, was suggested as being one possible solution to these problems.
The three papers presented in this session looked at information users and usage patterns in different contexts:
The careful thought given to specific user needs, the strategic approach to the project, the teamwork required, the blending of government and private sector support, and the clever use of information (touch screen) technology to get the information to the people in a way which will encourage wide use, were all addressed. The meeting was left with the thought that this resource could be of use not just within the country, but also outside, to potential investors, for example.
Ash Kabi, General Manager, Publishing Division, The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), UK, described trends in the demand for printed and electronic outputs of RSC's bibliographic database in chemistry, which will have been recognized readily by all secondary publishers represented at this meeting. User needs and expectations are changing rapidly under the influence of developments in information technology, and the speaker stressed how important it is to continually monitor these and give the customer what is wanted. His data showed also how challenging it is for a publisher to maintain profitability in the face of such trends, and make projections for the future when who knows what may happen to demand for information and to the delivery media that users prefer.
Making information available over the Internet presents the most immediate challenge. Will it open up new markets, secure new end users (not just libraries) wishing to acquire information on a transactional rather than a subscription basis, or will it just be another medium replacing others without any significant effect on the publisher's revenue? Although print remains the dominant medium for RSC (deliberately not so for INIST) it is being rapidly displaced by online access and CD-ROM. What will happen when Internet access becomes commonplace remains to be seen.
Nancy Hafkin and Makane Faye, PADIS, Economic Commission for Africa, Ethiopia, drew our attention to steps being taken to help Africa enter the information age. We were advised of the Action Plan that has now been endorsed by African Ministers of Planning and Social Development.
Use of information in Africa is currently low for various reasons connected with traditions of oral communication and the low expectation that information will be available. The aim must be to develop the tools and resources to enable the African economy to utilize scientific knowledge to meet development objectives just as readily as the more rapidly developing parts of the world.
We were told of the role that PADIS is playing in promoting information systems in support of African development, by
(i) improving the information infrastructure
(ii) building and strengthening capacities for effective information management
(iii) promoting information exchange
(iv) providing advisory services and training
(v) developing and promoting standards and protocols in these areas.
Their achievements to date were described, with specific examples such as an African development database on CD-ROM which they plan to distribute widely, and various studies of the users and uses of information in the African context.
This led into some remarks by an additional panelist, José-Marie Griffiths, Vice-Chancellor for Information Infrastructure, University of Tennessee, who highlighted the study led by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) to assess the positive impact of information on the development process. Such assessments have never been easy but they are becoming increasingly important to persuade decision makers to invest, and to continue to invest in information systems, when there are so many other demands on the national budget. To continue shedding light on this subject, she advised us that the IDRC impact programme will continue, under the auspices of the University of Tennessee, with the creation of a clearinghouse system, to which other organizations are invited to contribute.
Other issues raised during the question and answer session included: the rapid rise in the use of e-mail in Africa, at present mainly for routine messaging purposes; the desirability of South-South cooperation in training of information specialists; the continued importance of the role of oral communication despite technological alternatives; and the importance of focusing on information content, not just the delivery medium.
Effat el Shouky, RITSEC, Egypt, described the Egyptian Museum Project which applies information technology to the preservation and dissemination of culture. Information systems and multimedia, including images, lead to the production of kiosks, CD-ROMs, a manuscript database, a multimedia manuscript retrieval system, and a thesaurus. The project team is eager to cooperate with other African countries and to share expertise and technologies.
Pierre Laferriere, Teleglobe, Canada, outlined the objectives and activities of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC) Working Group on Digital Libraries and Electronic Publishing. GIIC is a Washington-based organization with public-private collaboration, a central guiding committee and appointed commissioners chairing working groups. It was established in late 1995 to exist until 1997, and its vision is electronic information available on demand, printed and downloaded if needed. The objective of GIIC is to encourage the establishment of a universal, open, efficient system for making information available in areas such as: world heritage information, government data, and scientific, technical, and medical information.
The advantages of electronic publishing are timeliness, comprehensiveness, end-user options (formats, links, language), cost minimization and cost deferral (on demand printing defers incremental and fixed costs). But several aspects are still at issue: equipment, price trends for high bandwidth, questions of intellectual property and public domain access, security, standards, privacy and user protection.
The proposed agenda for the GIIC is to:
INIS is a decentralized structure at national and regional levels. It currently consists of 97 member states and 17 international organizations. The database includes over 1.8 million records; over 350,000 full text, grey literature documents are available on microfiche from the Library in Vienna. INIS products are distributed on CD-ROM, online, on magnetic tapes and on microfiche. They are made available free of charge to the national centers which contribute to the database development.
The speaker completed his presentation with a description of some future strategies:
In 1996 CABI established a new corporate Information for Development Programme, separate from CABI's publishing business. It builds on existing programmes but focuses on novel publishing initiatives (such as CD-ROM). It is aimed at developing countries and emerging economies. Financial priority is full cost recovery and external financial support is required. It aims to establish self-sustaining initiatives and to work in partnership with other organizations. Member countries receive priority.
The Information for Development Programme includes:
The presentations we heard this morning all focused on new initiatives that could remove, or at least minimize, barriers to the flow of information to developing regions of the world, with a specific focus on Africa.
Joyce Amenta, Director, Division of Scientific and Technical Information, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told us about a new proposal for a project undertaken by the IAEA, the goals of which are to promote economic development in the region, while encouraging better management of the environment. Regional cooperation is an important element of these plans.
Rosemary McGillivray, Manager, Worldnet Gateway, CSIR, South Africa, reported on an exciting new service that will mirror and access a very comprehensive set of information resources available now to the engineering community in the United States, the EI Village. An important feature of this new online service is the efforts made to create localized content and support that is specifically geared to the needs of users in Southern Africa.
Elliot R. Siegel, Associate Director for Health Information, US NLM, described a new pilot project recently launched in the Eastern Caribbean that brings together a variety of non-governmental organizations, public telecommunication operators, database providers (under the auspices of ICSTI), and user groups. A key feature of this telematics project is the emphasis on promoting affordable access to the Internet as a means of obtaining access to scientific and technical information, as well as a systematic effort to evaluate the impact of such access on the professional activities of users.
Each of these projects has a number of characteristics in common: sustainability, regional cooperation, and the expressed goal of promoting the value of information as a means for supporting growth and enhancing economic competitiveness.
In the discussion that followed, we all agreed that training is a key prerequisite for effective user utilization of these new technologies and effective utilization of the content, as well. Pricing considerations must also be built into project plans of this kind. While concessionary pricing is obviously needed in the early stages, project planners would do well to incorporate longer term plans that realistically take into account the actual costs of these services which, one would expect, could indeed be lower as a result of increasing the volume of use.
Lastly, we heard a very sobering presentation by Mike Jensen, IT Consultant, South Africa, on access to online information in Africa. He outlined for us the general lack of availability at present of full Internet service in most African countries. The encouraging news is the existence of many new initiatives by non-governmental organizations, private companies, and others, to institute new services (e.g., the Leland Initiative). Some of these also take into account rapidly changing telecommunication capabilities (e.g., satellite services) and, when coupled with the emergence of new service providers, could lead to increasing competition and lower prices. The speaker ended on a very positive note: predicting that in five years time, Internet services in Africa will be as good as those in the U.S. and Europe.
Two statements - "Information is Power" and "Access to Information is the prerequisite of all prerequisites" set the stage for the issues and challenges discussed in this session. Until information can be put into the mind of a user it is only potential power and when information is limited to a few then knowledge creation is limited. New knowledge is built upon old knowledge. Information diffusion is as critical as information gathering.
In introducing the session on networking, the Chairperson Elizabeth Buffum, United States Department of Energy, pointed out the general advantages of electronic networking. She pointed out that every 30 seconds someone in the World joins the Internet. Since access to the Internet is available in nearly every country global communication should be the goal, not local or regional communication using international networks.
"Information is Power. Empowering people means facilitating access to information that they use to educate themselves and others to improve the quality of life. In fact the development of any nation is increasingly dependent on the know-how of its people." These words established the foundation for the remarks of Muriuki Mureithi, Telecommunications Foundation of Africa, Kenya, who outlined the telecommunication infrastructure and related issues in Africa.
From a telecommunication perspective there are three distinct regions in Africa: the five countries in northern Africa comprising the Maghreb Union, the group of 41 countries loosely referred to as Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Africa itself. Of the 11.5 million telephone lines in Africa, over 43% are in North Africa, 30% in South Africa and the rest is unevenly shared among the Sub-Saharan countries. Significant also is the fact that close to 60% of the phone lines are in the urban areas. These areas, however, hold less than 20% of the population. When low disposable incomes, high international communications charges, and a small information industry carrying intra-regional relevant or generated content are added to this uneven distribution, the result is reduced per capita use of the communication networks.
The North-South gap between the information rich North and information poor South is significant, not only in information availability but in relevance. In addition to more universal dissemination, African development must be enhanced by actions to support regional information creation addressing specific concerns in Africa. The speaker, however, pointed out that free flow of information is not universally accepted. In most countries telecommunication services are an extension of government and not a commercial undertaking. Thus, free flow of information requires "more accountability and transparency" among the leaders of the various countries.
The challenge of empowerment through improved information delivery must be considered more than just improving the infrastructure to deliver scientific and technical information using sophisticated technology and high bandwidths. We must also look at ways to use simple technology to deliver, for example, information to technicians in the farmlands of Africa and to rural health clinics. Thus, the last mile must be seen as the last mile to a rural village as opposed to the last mile in an African urban center.
But there is hope. Africa is a growth continent and there are many opportunities. There is also an awareness and desire to seriously address the challenges involved in making information and its delivery play a critical role in African economic development. International organizations like UNESCO, the World Bank, and the International Telecommunication Union as well as commercial companies and individual African countries are doing much to raise the awareness of government leaders, to find ways to deliver information throughout Africa for better development, and to create a favorable information infrastructure in Africa.
The theme of universal telecommunication service to support development was expanded by Sean O'Siochru, Nexus Research, Ireland. Affordable access must also include effective use. An active focus on universal service is essential for community access, and special regulation and special support is needed to retain this focus. Universal service in the "Information Society" must be defined more broadly including training in the effective use of information.
The building of a robust, affordable, and effective telecommunication infrastructure providing universal access to everyone is costly and requires a reasonable return on investment, whether the objective is business success or an improved standard of living. Universal service is composed of complex factors requiring an innovative combination of instruments and measures to be applied. This includes creative financing efforts, establishment of goals and objectives, development of imaginative operating instruments such as licenses, rate tariffs, enlightened government policy, and encouragement of technology innovation.
Focusing on and supporting emerging user needs demands active participation of communities, development groups, and local users. To ensure effective use of electronic networks there must be an informed public advocacy.
Edgar Evans, CSIR, South Africa, explored the objectives of an alternative approach to providing Internet service in Africa. The first objective is to create a network within the existing African telecommunication structural constraints. The proposed approach is to use Very Small Aperture Transmission (VSAT) technology. Many African countries already have underutilized satellite dishes within their borders. Thus, a second objective of achieving an end user price of US$ 0.10 per minute of usage appears to be achievable. The availability of access to all potential users is dependent on low telecommunication cost.
But access without content is of little value. The CSIR has invested considerable resources to create community access to the Internet, and home and academic usage of the Internet, and to the content provided through the Worldnet Gateway and CompuServe. The Worldnet Gateway was developed to provide cost effective access to databases like Dialog, Questel-Orbit and INFOACCESS. The CSIR is the African distributor for CompuServe.
The CSIR has established hubs in Pretoria, South Africa and in Port Louis, Mauritius with hubs being installed in Nairobi, Kenya and Paris, France. Egypt and Gabon are also planned to host hubs. Additionally, nodes permit countries surrounding the hubs to access information services. Nodes have been established in three countries with rapid expansion planned to many others.
The CSIR believes that telecommunication regulations among the various countries need not be constraining if the authorities are made part of the solution. They also believe that extensive infrastructure is not necessary if VSAT technology replaces copper wire technologies. They believe a joint venture involving all of the telecommunication players, the added value vendors and providers, and the owners of satellite bandwidth will provide a valuable service at a low cost to the end user and also provide a good return on investment.
Salah Benabdallah, Head of the Decision Support Systems Department, Regional Institute for Informatics Sciences and Telecommunications, Tunisia, described the National Research Network for Science and Technology established in Tunisia. This network connects, through fiber networks, Tunisian Research and Universities, Agricultural Research Centers, and other research enterprises with each other and the rest of the world. The Tunisian effort demonstrates a commitment to exploit electronic information resources and an understanding that dissimilar information needs can be met through a common network.
The session concluded with questions from the floor. The major discussion was whether the VSAT technology proposal would offer a solution to the problem of the "last mile" or would it mostly serve the scientific and technical information needs of the research community. No consensus was reached.
To summarize the Networking Session, currently Africa presents a rather gloomy telecommunication picture with severe regulatory authorities hampering the growth of the information industry, poor infrastructure, and insufficient funding. Free flow of information is not universally accepted by all governments and low disposable incomes, high telecommunication costs, an inadequate and disproportionately balanced information infrastructure, and a lack of awareness of the value of information are huge challenges. But the opportunity is great enough to offset the challenges.
It is critical to emphasize improved access to information for economic and social development and to make it relevant to the region or a local community. Information must be locally developed as well as available from other sources and must be available universally to most people and organizations as opposed to a few. Affordable access without effective use has limited value. Therefore, there must be more focus on the user and usage - namely emphasis on individual context.
Recognizing that a network can be many things to many people, we can meet many needs - as long as flexibility is built in and through training and education, an information society culture is built. With the use of the Internet growing exponentially, this culture transformation is inevitable.
He summarized the proceedings as follows:
Within ICSTI we aim to make our contribution by promoting events such as this conference and by maintaining a forum through our international membership to provide further dialogue and greater mutual understanding. We recognize that we must find ways of engaging more Africa based organizations within our membership.
It is hoped that all of you will be able to take something from this conference, ponder further on the issues raised and consider how you can make your contribution to the development of North-South cooperation in scientific and technical information provision.
The main objective of JST is to promote and encourage science and technology activities in Japan. JST will take up the assignments of JICST and JRDC and will expand into some new areas as well. The main pillars of JST's activities include JICST's scientific and technical information services, and research cooperation programmes, basic research and technology development, and technology transfer promotion projects. JST is expected to play an important role in the implementation of recent legislation of "Basic Law of Science and Technology" in Japan.
The information services will be carried out by one of JST's departments to be called "JICST", JST Information Center for Science and Technology.