INIST and its position in the changing information market

The scientific and technical information market is presently undergoing great change with technology changing the traditional interactions between publicher, library, and user. Furthermore, as almost all scientific and technological data is now stored in some digital form, information has become a dynamical source. To many traditional players in the information world, these changes are seen and threats. Yet the need for verified information remains and the traditional roles of authoring, collecting, verifying, and disseminating remain, although new alliances, joint ventures and effort sharing liaisons will be formed. INIST need have little to fear from these changes, and can even benefit from them. INIST has a respected image. The institute deviers high quality services. It has a key position in France and as part of the CNRS is both part of, and a representative, of a major scientific market. INIST's immediate role is that of a document delivery supplier and a database builder and supplier. It can and does act as a host. Due to its pivotal position between the CNRS (users) and other suppliers of information, INIST is able to offer help and collaborate with all concerned in the information procurement and production cycle. INIST should use its central market position with the CNRS institutes as a critical mass : again in two ways by identifying what that market requires and the acting as a central negociator to obtain and offer the required information for that market. INIST can increase the information services it offers to the CNRS community by working with other partners such as aggregaters or individual publishers. INIST has a problem with foreign publishers over the payment of copyright fees. INIST should address this urgently and seek to make bi-lateral arrangements wherever possible. Once this is solved INIST should offer its market position, Article@inist service and its extensive archive of electronic documents, to develop a wider service in the delivery of subscription and non-subscription electronic articles. INIST should use its archive experience to look for further links to publishers acting in the DOI-X and "integrated document delovery service". Contacts could be made with the STM Publishing Group or individual publishers such as Elsevier, John Wiley and Sons UK or Blackwell Science. INIST could also develop a series of Thematic Portals using INIST services and database products such as PASCAL. Third party portal builders could certainly approach INIST to license or use services such as Article@inist. Despite these turbulent times, INIST must benefit from the following : 1 - Scientific and Technical research has to be built upon verified work and so the refereed article remains the key item in any story. 2 - No one publisher holds a critical mass of literature in a specific field