The European Union and Serials Publishing: Impact and Influence

Like the USA and Japan, the European Union has developed initiatives to address the implications of the increasing importance of information as a strategic resource. Whilst considering the social impact from developments in information and communications technologies: job security; skill requirements and human resources etc, the EU strategy is also focused on keeping EU businesses competitive through a wide range of research projects in information engineering. As major participants in the information business, the publishers' role will be greatly changed by the new communication methods, the changes in nature of information and the shifting relationships in the communications chain.


Introduction
Information is becoming increasingly recognised as a strategic resource. Todays economy is more and more knowledge-based and the possession, transmission and exploitation of information are now critical to the success of Europe's industries and businesses. Considerable media coverage has been given to 'information superhighways', both to the enormous potential they offer as well as to the problems (for example, pricing and regulation) surrounding their realisation. In Europe, Japan and the United States efforts are under way to build the 'information superhighways' of the future. In fact, the World Bank forecasts a virtual tripling of global communications capacity in the next dozen years, and that still excludes cellular, cable and VSAT based networks. An improved information and communications infrastructure is essential in a world which is becoming a global trading place where business is increasingly being conducted electronically. Computer communications networks are no longer the domain of science, but also of government, industry and the ordinary citizens, and have now a direct impact on economic competitiveness and social evolution.
In the United States, in September 1993, the Clinton administration outlined its agenda for action for the creation of a National Information Infrastructure1. In Japan, part of a 1993 economic stimulation package dealt with the construction of a new information communications infrastructure, and NTT, the principle Japanese telecommunications service provider, has inaugurated a 25-year programme called OFL-21 (Optical Fibre Loop for the twenty-first century) to build a broadband network that will reach every school, business and home by the year 2015. Equally, numerous other countries such as France, Australia, The Netherlands, Canada, Singapore, and the UK, have all published policy or discussion documents concerning 'information superhighways' and Information Society issues.
Within the European Union, similar initiatives are under way. Title XII of the Maastricht Treaty provides for the construction and extension of trans-European networks in the telecommunications,

White Paper and the Bangemann Report: their implications for the information market and the information industry
The White Paper addresses the issue of steeply rising unemployment in Europe and sets as a target the creation of 15 million new jobs by the year 2000. The White Paper makes specific reference to the information market and information industry, and stresses that an economy based upon the creation, dissemination and exploitation of knowledgeor information, will be one of the dominant features of the twnety-first century. A new 'Information Society' is emerging, in which management, quality and currency of information are key factors for industrial competitiveness. Access to and utilisation of informationthe essence of an 'information culture'are becoming more and more key issues, as European industries strive to increase their productivity and competitiveness.
The White Paper recognises the structural changes currently taking place in the information industry: the convergence of the telecommunications, information technology, consumer electronics, media (including publishing) and broadcasting industries around the issue of multimedia. Complex groups and alliances are forming, and will continue to form, and are impacting significantly upon the information value chain: creation and distribution of information.
The Bangemann Group was set up to bring together high-level representatives of the following sectors: computer industry, telecommunication industry, telecommunications operators, satellite operators, publishers, audio-visual industries, and users (eg: medical, educational and administration fields), and submitted its final report at the European Council Summit in Corfu in June 1994, entitled 'Europe and the Global Information Society. ' The report contains specific recommendations and proposes an action plan of concrete initiatives, based on a partnership between the private and public sectors designed to bring Europe forward into the Information Society. The report maintains that the Information Society has the potential to improve the quality of life of Europe's citizens, and the efficiency of our social and economic organisation, as well as to reinforce cohesion between Member States.
Warnings are given of the risk of creating a two-tier society consisting of the informationrich and the information-poor. This must be avoided by guaranteeing everyone a fair access to the information infrastructure. Widespread acceptance and use of the services, offered by the new technologies, must be secured by preparing Europeans for the advent of the Information Society. This priority task can best be achieved through education, training and promotion. The Bangemann Report points out that in Europe business awareness of the opportunities is still lower than in the US. Teleconferencing, telecommerce, and electronic document interchange (EDI) are specifically cited as business applications worth promoting and improving. Furthermore, small-and medium-sized enterprises (SME)the backbone of the European economymust be able to benefit from the increased competitiveness that can derived from being linked to easy-to-easy access, cost-effective networks providing not only information on production and market openings, but also connecting them to R&D teams working in universities, research institutes and laboratories throughout Europe. In the consumer market, a plethora of services is predicted to emerge, which will range from home banking and teleshopping to an almost unlimited choice of entertainment on demand.
The recommendations conclude with a number of possible applications geared towards launching the European Information Society. It is proposed that projects in the following areas could fulfil a demonstration function that would help promote their use by stimulating demand and supply: . the regulatory and legal framework; . networks, basic services, applications and content; . social, societal and cultural aspects; promotion of the Information Society.
As regards the legislative framework, the Commission has presented a complete reform package, leading to full liberalisation in telecommunications by 1 January 1998. The Fourth Framework Programme on Research and Technological Development is successfully being implemented and it incorporates three specific programmes related to information and communication technologies. Several measures, aimed at increased awareness building, have been launched. The G7 Conferences held in Brussels in February 1995 and in South Africa in May 1996 also contributed to raising awareness. Most of the measures outlined in the Action Plan have either been realised or are being launched. However, some actions are pending as their preparation takes more time than expected, eg: information security.
Valuable experience has been gained in the process of the implantation of the Action Man. The Commission has now a more comprehensive picture of the measures necessary to achieve the objectives of its Information Society policy. In addition, new questions and issues have emerged. It is therefore time to review the Action Plan in order to give the Information Society a new political impetus. This is the objective of the Information Society Council on 8 October 1996.
In essence four main policy lines have been identified as priorities of equal importance:

(i) Improving the business environment
Full telecommunication liberalisation must be effectively implemented throughout the European Union by 1 January 1998. Increased transparency and consistency of national regulation related to Information Society services is needed to ensure fair competition and the functioning of the internal market. Speedy take-up of information and communication technologies by the various sectors of the economy including SMEs is essential.

(ii) Investing in the future
The Information Society means a knowledgebased society. Information Society related research should have a key role in the 5th Framework Programme as stated in the first orientations that the Commission adopted on 10 July 1996. The Commission will respond to the invitation of the European Summit at Florence 'to rapidly work out an action plan on the initiative Learning in the Information Society'.

(iii) People at the centre
Putting people at the centre of the Information Society policy is a Commission priority, ie: to respond better to their expectations and concerns on issues such as access to a wide range of services and content. In practice the Commission intends to advance towards a closer integration of Structural Funds and the Information Society policies to address social questions, to protect consumer interests and to improve the quality of public sector services.

( i d Meeting the global challenge
Increasing globalisation means effort should be put on defining global rules. The Commission considers the completion of the WTO negotiations highly important in this respect.
As an immediate practical step, the Fourth Framework Programme of Research and Technological Development will contribute extensively to accelerating the deployment of the applications mentioned above. The programme Telematics Applications of Common Interests looks at the applications of existing and emerging technologies in a number of important areas directly related to the objectives outlined in the White Paper. Specifically these are in areas such as administration, rransport, research networks, education and training, libraries, urban and rural areas, healthcare, disabled and elderly people, environment, and supported by telematics, language, and information engineering. More information can be obtained on Community supported Research and Technological Development programmes and projects, including results, etc, from the public database system called CORDIS6.
Concerning the content aspect which covers the audio-visual field and the information industry and market, several actions have been initiated in 1996. In the area of the information market, the availability of high quality information resources will be a key element in the information infrastructure. Building on the results of Commission programmes such as IMPACT, the programme Info2000 will help provide high quality information resources7. The Info2000 programme will focus on the transition from print to electronic publishing and on interactive multimedia services. As a very concrete measure an Information Society Project Office (ISPO)8 has been set up to support, promote and orient private and public actions in the field of the Information Society.

G7 Meeting on the Information Society
From 25 to 26 February 1995 the G7 held a ministerial conference in Brussels dedicated solely to exploring the critical issues related to a world-wide Information Soaety. The conference covered three main areas regulatory framework and competition, the information infrastructure and applications, and soda1 and cultural aspects.
The G7 partners committed themselves to: ensure citizen's access through universal service; open up markets to allow the development of global systems; pursue the interconnectivity of networks and the interoperability of services; provide open access to networks for service and information suppliers; implement fair and effective licensing and frequency allocation; allow for cooperation while shielding against anti-competition behaviour.
In addition the participants agreed to increase their efforts to find creative, technological and policy solutions to the issues of: (i) privacy and the protection of personal data; (ii) increased reliability and security of national and international networks, and (iii) the technical protection of creativity and content provision.
Equally the G7 partners recognised the impact that interactive (multimedia) applications will have on society and they agreed to: (i) share experiences on emerging applications through the creation of an inventory of major implementations; (ii) act as a catalyst for the promotion of research, applications and generic services, and (iii) promote joint demonstration projects. In fad eleven selected joint pilot projects (one of which concerns digital libraries) were selected where international cooperation would be an asset.

Living and working in the information society: people first
This most recent of contributions by the European Commission asks a few simple questions which are nevertheless at the heart of today's problems: will the technologies not destroy more jobs than they create?; will people be able to adapt to the changes?; will the complexity and the cost of the new technologies not widen the gaps between industrialised and less developed areas, between the young and the old, and between those in the know and those who are not?
The Green Paper states quite clearly that with the widening application of information and communication technologies there is a huge potential for wealth creation, higher standards of living and better services. These technologies are adding a new dimension to society in Europe, and as goods and services become more and more knowledge-based, there is an increasing need for public poliaes which ensure equitable access to the Information Society and a fair distribution of the potential for prosperity.
The key messages in the Green Paper can be summarised as follows: the most successful enterprises are combining information and communication technologies with education and training and with organisation transformation in an integrated approach; information and communication technologies have huge effects on skill requirements, and thus employment poliaes must become more focused on human resource investment; the Information Society must be about people and it should be used to unlock the power of information and not to create inequalities between the information rich and the information poor; the introduction of new information and communication technologies raises great The EU and serials publishing: impact and influence Bernard Smith Serials -Vo1.9, no.3, Nuuember 1996 concerns in terms of job security, job content, skills obsolescence, and the relationship between working and living patterns; Europe's economies are being transformed away from standardised manual production towards a more diversified, knowledge-based, production of goods and services; effective implementation of new information and communication technologies require enterprise-level training, careful job design and rapid implementation of innovations; an integrated approach to information and communication technologies must be built on the small unit, marketdriven, decentralised and based on teamworking, which is particularly adapted to the needs of the SME, and in particular 'microfirms'; the application of new technologies can bring considerable added value to risk assessment activities, the collection, screening and dissemination of information, education and training in occupational safety and health, and for end users, particularly the SME; it is also important to reflect upon how to promote best practice in terms of use of information and communication technologies and job creation; these new technologies require not only stronger basic skills in numeracy and literacy but also a new form of basic skill, the skill of interaction with the new technology itself; the learning company' must emerge as a vital component of the learning society where people use their electronic access to knowledge and information to update their skills.

Some aspects not directly related to R&D activities
Without entering into a detailed discussion, the world of scientific, technical and medical information can be identified as touching on a variety of different issues, many more related to regulatory aspects rather than R&D orientations. As a list of key issues, the following are worth noting: the fundamental right of freedom of movement of workers and the selfemployed, as well as the freedom to provide services (eg: mutual recognition of qualifications in the scientific, technical and medical fields, engineering, architecture, etc); the author's right to derive a financial advantage from the economic exploitation of his work, as well as the promotion of intellectual and artistic creation and scientific innovation (eventual harmonisation of copyright and related rights); taxation of CD-ROM, CD-i, and other digtal video and multimedia supports, as compared to paper-based dissemination; actions to encourage a wide access based upon the diversified supply of information sources; a guarantee of genuine access to core information and data of high scientific quality; the important role that scientific, technical and medical informaSon has in areas such as education, training, regional and industrial development, etc; pluralism in the media (competition policy); guarantee public access to information (right of access, at a reasonable price); promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity; openness of trade and competition and the avoidance of undue distortion of markets (public subsidies); the role of public service in the provision of information, education, culture and entertainment, as well as sports (broadcasting policy); the emergence of new types of audio-visual services ('pay-per-view' and 'video on demand') and the new interactive multimedia products and services (erosion of the traditional frontier between broadcasting and telecommunications); the custodianship of national resources having scientific, technical or industrial value; access to information on local savoir-faire or on traditional methods of manufacturing, etc (part of the issue of cultural identity). The focus in the following sections will be the specific relationship developed between STM information and advanced technologies, and in particular with the R&D programmes in information and communication technologies.

STM publishing and information/ communication technologies
There has developed over the last few years an interesting relationship between the general area of publishing and of advanced information and communications technologies. Table 1 outlines some of the projects funded under the R&D programmes over the last few years which have a relationship with issues of importance to the STM community. Clearly other projects could be cited (but are not) which include other types of publishers, eg: art, catalogue, tourism, mass media, etc. Additional information can be obtained by contacting directly the projects mentioned.
Additional information on projects funded under the RACE/ACTS programmes can be obtained from Ruth Nugent (phone: +32 2 2963415, e-mail: aco@postman.dgl3.cec.be), and for ESPRIT from Dominique Gonthier (phone: +32 2 2968151, e-mail: dorninique.gonthier@dg3.cec.be). In addition, the Libraries sector of the Telematin Applications Programme supports some interesting projects in the sector of libraries, which are by definition all linked in one way or another to information access issues. A complete review of library projects are on echo (http://www.echo.lu/), and additional information can be obtained from Ariane Iljon (phone: +352 4301 32923, e-mail: ariane.iljon@lux.dgl3.cec.be).
In general a number of fundamental shifts in the focus of R&D funding in the broad area of electronic publishing can be identified, namely: the change of focus from the description (eventually also preservation) and management of collections of information to the exploitation, dissemination and provision of access to those colletions: hence the increased focus on distributed access to networked archives; the increasing role that the image plays (capture, archiving, resolution, etc) and the move through the exploitation of multimedia technologies to the integration of the image (increasingly 3D images and video) into virtual environments for presentation purposes; the focus now on networking solutions (or eventually hybrid) as compared to the CD-ROM solution for the dissemination of information; the move from technological components supporting the issues of IPR, copyright, and transactions to systems providing 'keyin-hand' solutions; the evolving role of the library community in providing networked access to collections of specialist information.
It is however true to say that the STM publisher has not been a particularly active participant in European funded R&D projects. Just as much as the museum and gallery communities have established themselves as being privileged locations for the creation and application of multimedia resources and have proved good at illustrating the benefits of the use of advanced technologies, so the scientific publishing community has been hesitant in proposing truly innovative R&D projects for European support.

IPR management
Some conclusions from a recent workshop, organised by the European Commission (Brussels, 10 June 1996), were: IPR management remains a key issue both for global commerce as well as for information system interoperability; there is a need to promote consensus between all the players on copyright management systems; future work should be more oriented towards the users' needs and on practical business aspects; The EU and serials publishing: impact and influence Bernard Smith Serials -Vo19, no.3, N & 1996 increased focus on exploiting copyright rather than just prokction techniques; less emphasis on payment methods and security since commercial solutions will soon appear; authors, small distributors and copyright holders need to become more involved in the discussion and decision processes; look to standardise contracts across the EU for clearing copyright material; greater coordination is needed between groups/projects working in the area.
The URL for the complete transcript of the discussion is: http://www2.echo.lu/oii/eu/ ipr.html

The information market and STM publishing
The IMPACT (Information Market Policy Action) programme concerned the creation of an internal market for information services. Under the extension programme IMPACT 2 (1991-19951, actions were funded in the general areas of multimedia publishing, geographic information and business services. In general, it can be said that the programme had a considerable effect on raising awareness about how multimedia can be used to present information of cultural, industrial and public interest. Currently, Info2000, which supersedes the IMPACT programmes, aims to stimulate the development and use of multimedia information content. The central theme of Info2000 is to stimulate the development of a European, information-content industr,~ both capable of competing on a global scale and able to satisfy Europe's internal demand for highquality multimedia content. The Commission has recently closed (opened on 21 June 1996, closed on 13 September 1996) a call for proposals for pilot projects that help to establish a European capacity to produce multilingual, interactive, multimedia information products by building on the wealth of available European content. Ways should be demonstrated which overcome technological, cultural, market and other barriers to the growth of a European information industry.
Projects will aim at European multimedia products that incorporate the specific characteristics of language and culture.
The projects address the issues of multimedia information supply in the following specific domains: the economic exploitation of Europe's cultural heritage; business information for firms, in particular for SMEs; the organisation and use of geographic information; the exploitation of scientific, technical and medical information.
All projects will demonstrate the full value of multimedia content to users on a European scale, and they will concentrate on: European content of intrinsic worth to users by virtue of its breadth, depth and reliability; the improvement of interactive access mechanisms to the content offered; making basic data kg: mapping data) available on the open market for further exploitation by the addition of thematic data and advanced multimedia methods or information systems; the adaptation of content to the real needs of significant numbers of potential users, whether SMEs, atizens or other target groups, including taking account of linguistic and cultural differences the employment of adequate distribution channels to facilitate user access.
Initial support to selected projects will be to perform a definition phase of six months duration, in order to carry out market research, technology assessment, rights acquisition and the development of a working prototype, or other demonstrable result. After evaluation of the results, certain projects will be granted further financial support for a phase of implementation.
Community finanaal support has been based on actual costs incurred and will be calculated at up to 40% of those costs. For a participant established in a less favoured region or in a small enterprise, the percentage support could be raised to 50%. For the definition phase projects, the ceiling on support is lOOk ECU. For the later implementation phase projects, support may be granted up to 500k ECU. In exceptional cases a higher ceiling, up to l m ECU, may be decided.
All projects are transnational in scope, aim at multilingual information access and exemplify cooperation across national borders.
In the area of scientific, technical and medical information the aim is to bring together the different actors involved in the creation, dissemination and use of such information, thus linking the research scientists to the many users from different cultures and having different objectives, in particular those in industry. The call sought to support: projects which addressed specific sectorial information needs and aimed to develop products and delivery services based upon proven commercial requirements; integrated information services specifically addressing the prospects of integrating industry procedures and systems with the requirement for information market products, eg: the development of technical information, such as materials test data, to integrate with tendering and bidding systems; services that address the need for public policy makers and administrations, as well as workers' and citizens' organisations to have available scientific information adapted to their requirements in specific domains, such as public health protection.
For further information on the activities of the STM sector, contact Mr G Heine; phone: +352 4301-33620; fax: +352 4301-33190; e-mail: gerhard.heine@lux.dgl3.cec.be. Mr Heine is also responsible within Info2000 for the issues surrounding the use of multimedia content standards (see the echo site for more information).
This action, although completed (the call having closed in mid-September 1996), can be expected to produce an important set of feasibility projects followed in late 1997 by a smaller series of implementation projects. Depending upon budgetary considerations further calls may be envisaged in the coming four years.

Information Engineering
Information Engineering, as a new horizontal R&D sector in the Telematics Applications Programme, aims to permit easier and more selective access and better usability of information in all its forms9. The approach involves pilot applications which integrate the three main links in the information chain (electronic publishing, information dissemination, information retrieval). In targeting ease of access, usability and multimedia information content, it focuses on: user requirements (user-centred design, user requirement analysis); cost-effective integration into user friendly systems of tools and methods used in different stages of the information chain; multimedia information (repositories of non-text information).
Projects are being funded in areas such as: digital collections and asset trading networks; electronic newspapers and magazines; technical documentation and services; multimedia interactive catalogues; scientific, technical and medical publishing.
Information Engineering today is co-funding (50%) a total of nine large-scale pilot experiments, ten short-term feasibility projects, as well as four support projects. These projects are listed in Table 2. The larger projects generally involve Community funding in the 1.4-3m ECU range, run over 30-36 months, and bring together between ten and 25 different The EU and serials publishing: implct and influence Bernard Smith Serials - Vol.9, no.3, Noaember 1996 organisations and companies. The smaller feasibility projects are funded (at 50%) for lOOk ECU for a twelve month period and are designed to develop new and innovative perspectives for future large-scale pilot projects.

Information Engineering projects
The single most important project with respect to scientific, technical and medical information is the EUROPE-MMM project. Although both the projects MULTIMEDIA BROKER and TWENTY-ONE can be expected to provide some very useful results for the broad STM publishing community.
It is equally interesting to note that at least three of the presently operational feasibility projects target, in one form or another, the publishing of STM information, namely: NEESTAR, HYPDOC, and MEDFORM. These three projects can be expected to act as foa for new project proposals in the broad area of STM publishing in the forthcoming call under the Telematics Applications Programme.

Forthcoming call under the Telematics Applications Programme
Information Engineering will be issuing a new call for large-scale implementation projects on the 15 December 19%, with a probable close date of 15 March 1997.
The call will be essentially oriented towards implementation projects, being based upon, and as an extension of, a solid feasibility project. The call will be open to any and all consortia able to demonstrate adequate proof of feasibility. Clearly the presently active feasibility projects are likely to possess such information. However, past experience has shown, and this is particularly true in the area of STM publishing, that many consortia are already actively performing tests and trials in the general area of tele-publishing. As such the call would allow such consortia to develop their ideas further in a truly European context. Solid feasibility must be demonstrated and can be expected to cover such things as: survey of technical issues and relationship with tasks in the Information Engineering work 'programme; customer related issues, user requirements and survey results; market survey, cost-benefit, and business plans; issues associated with, and pre-selection of, the commeraal transaction mechanisms; treatment of existing technical standards; inclusion of usability methodologies; consortium building.
The call in Information Engineering will have a limited scope. It will focus only on projects attacking one of the following: I. digital collections (large volumes of distributed information, asset trading); 2. new publishing models, in scientific, technical and medical publishing. 'niche' (small groups of knowledgeintensive users, network delivery only).
mass market (family, news, etc); 3. corporate publishing (animated technical documents, product information and catalogues).
It can thus be seen that the general area of STM publishing (and this could equally include different forms of 'niche' publishing), when based upon the practical testing of new commercial models, is well represented. The now well known requirements of Information Engineering (eg: real user involvement, supporting the interactive design process including usability testing, enhanced functionality and added-value criteria, and the true involvement of multimedia data types) will naturally be maintained.
Further information on Information Engineering can be obtained from I'M Europe on http://www.echo.lu/, or from a technical information site, run by the project IESERV, on http:// www.pira.co.uk/ie

New projects: new ideas
As has been outlined above, Information Engineering will be looking to support one, or possibly more, sizable R&D project(s1 in the specific area of STM publishing. The programmes expectations are multiple, but many of the following key issues will need to be treated in any successful proposal: examine how publishers deliver information and how users search and retrieve it; target network-based content delivery (open network); establish cooperation and common platform between publishers; include a critical mass of content; create and maintain a shared multimedia (scientific) information space; contribute to guidelines and principles for electronic archiving; conserve the elements of quality and differentiation; achieve a 'one-stop-shop' for customers; involve user groups and aim for the knowledge-intensive 'need-to-know' user; evaluate user needs and demand, and profiling techniques for consumers; support the users 'need to publish' requirements, count for tenure; maintain the concept of strict peer review; contribute to a code of ethics and conduct for electronic publication; empower the user to manage his own information space; perform a detailed cost-benefit analysis on the options studied; treat the privacy and confidentiality issues; examine how to structure multimedia content for deep interactivity; integrate multimedia databases with authoring/editing tools and use different indexing, navigation, and classification aids; develop new markets (electronic promotion and marketing).
The above list, disordered as it is, provides but one view of what a 'good' STM project might aim at within the context of Information Engineering. It is of course for the proposing consortia to establish their objectives, justify them in a clear and concise way, and to 'build' a viable platform for experimentation purposes. However, one point is clear, the focus of Information Engineering is not so much on the development of new technologies, but more on the integration of available technologies, along with copyright and transaction components, into functional information systems supporting different business models, and on providing answers to real world problems and well defined user needs.

Conclusions
This report clearly demonstrates, if only providing a partial and fragmented account of Community initiatives, that some actions do include a strong publishing dimension, could impact key problems of relevance to the STM publisher, and could thus be employed to mobilise the STM community around important problems facing its members. The key words are: strengthen and expand the participation of the STM community in European R&D projects, build-on and enrich the solid foundation for the dissemination of STM information in Europe, support scientific excellence and innovation, promote the emergence of permanent networks between all actors in the value chain.
From the perspective of Information Engineering, advance information and communication technologies are likely, in the coming years, to dramatically change the way thatpeople acquire and distribute knowledge, and as such also scientific, technical and medical content. Some projects, both at the national and international level, aim at the creation of massive stores of digital information of scientific significance. Projects such as Europe-MMM are equally vital in that it will become increasingly important that users are provided with simple ways for accessing and using these massive collections of valuable digital information. The capacity to select and identify relevant information, wherever it may be stored and in whatever language it may be found, will be one of the most important criteria by which users will judge future information systems, be they scientifically oriented or not. It is clearly the moment to provide concrete results, and it is to the advantage of EUROPE-MMM that they intend to package key results for distribution to the wider publishing community.
However, developments external to the scientific community will often impact and condition what will and will not be possible in the coming years. A recent studylo, performed under Information Engineering, reviewed the likely developments through to the year 2001 in areas touching on electronic publishing, information dissemination, and information retrieval. The study found that: transaction systems will mature and user confidence in the electronic marketplace will develop (although a single unified copyright system in Europe was unlikely to emerge in the next few years), and the seamless and transparent interaction of such systems will become a major issue from the users' viewpoint; if communications costs were to drop significantly (a likely option following liberalisation of the telecommunication marketplace in 1998), then significant new types of services, and in particular broadband services, would rapidly become economically attractive; -PC functionalities (rather than TV-based functionalities) were likely to be central to the interface for domestic electronic information services; whilst Internet-based services were likely to develop, there was still considerable doubt concerning how revenue would be generated in an electronic marketplace, and who (European or non-European information providers) would dominate the European market.
Concerning the general area of digital collections and asset trading, the report concluded that: broadband communications would have a major impact on a s s t (image, video) identification, acquisition, and transfer; new workflow software will support design, editorial and commercial processes; that all tradeable assets will be digital, be in standardised formats, and logically tagged; that rights trading environments (copyright/ permission/lisnsing/royalty) were likely to incorporate artificial intelligence techniques; that there will be major advances in indexing and search engines (associative/ probabilistic indexing, pattern recognition, search agents); that a significant portion of assets will become 'shareware', bypassing traditional publishers, image libraries and intermediaries; that the problems of verification and authorisation for brokering and payment will be solved; that global standards will be in place for digital cash and electronic wallets; . that agent technologies will be important in managing the location, specification and completion of transactions, . that the key commercial 'battle area' will be in who controls the electronic transaction process.
More specifically with respect to STM publishing the report stated that: digital printing will enable STM publishondemand; academic corporate bodies will have an increasing role to play as publishers; STM works of persistent value will appear as truly interactive multimedia presentations; Internet-based fast scientific communication will erode the traditional role of the STM journal; 'validated' databases will become accepted as publications (for tenure); digital multimedia content databases will be the common core for the production of print, CD, online, etc; encryption will enable lockable multivolume electronic 'bookshelf' publishing (on CD).
The report concluded by recommending that the key technology domains for action are: authoring tools and environments; virtual networks and services; workflow and transaction management; content tagging and identification.
A final word of warning is perhaps justified. Despite the immense potential offered by digital technologies and networks there still remains an enormous question mark concerning the acceptance by the user of these new technologies and the associated set of 'information-rich' products and services. Today, networks, such as Internet, are still used by a small minority of people. People who are usually young (33 years old), male (68%), reasonably well educated and well paid (approx. UW9,OOO). More than half of the people access the network from the home, pay for their own access, use it for browsing and entertainment, and see it as being nothing more than a substitute for watching TV.
Those people who do not use such technologies and networks see the issue in the light of the erosion of their job security and the difficulty in providing an acceptable education for their children.
Clearly there is a long way to go before everyone is both willing and able to use modem information and communication technologies and has troublefree access to the vast digital archives of human knowledge and culture that we all know is out there, but we just cannot find it when we need it!

References
The National lnformation Infrastructure: Agenda for Action', lnformation Infrastructure Task Force, September 15, 1993. More information can be obtained from an Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) Gopher Server which can be accessed through Internet by pointing out your Gopher Client to ittf.doc.gov or by telnet to iitf.doc.gov and login as gopher. There is access also available at the same address for WWW clients. Dial-up access by modem is available at +1 (202)