Emerging Issues in the Electronic Environment: Challenges for Librarians and Researchers in the Sciences

Citation

Fourie, I. (2006), "Emerging Issues in the Electronic Environment: Challenges for Librarians and Researchers in the Sciences", Online Information Review, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 199-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520610659256

Under the capable editorship of Jeannie Miller a number of expert contributors explore the issues that are changing the interactions between users and librarians in electronic libraries. Their focus is on librarians working with scientists. The contributions all fit in well with Miller's introduction in which she explains the objectives of the volume as “to inspire thought and future research on technology‐related issues that face both librarians and scientists”.

In the introductory section the impact of rapid advances in technology and scientific discovery are admitted. These affect the advanced technological skills required by science librarians, as well as the need to increase their subject expertise, and their abilities in dealing with remote users, shrinking budgets and a plethora of information being published.

Apart from the introduction by Miller, there are 13 chapters covering the following topics: new roles and new players in scientific communication, the meaning of serendipity in a digital library context and how librarians can facilitate conditions of serendipity for scientists. The benefits and disadvantages of electronic journals, retrospective digitisation projects and their impact on users, and the use of online supplementary material such as tables, lists, textual documents and multimedia in high‐impact scientific journals are then discussed. This is followed b a chapter on the challenges and opportunities for bibliometrics in an electronic environment. Patrick Sullivan offers a very useful chapter on current awareness services and information overload, which is followed by chapters on scholars' information‐seeking behaviour with regard to the use of electronic bibliographic databases and electronic journal articles, the use of biology databases, the acquisition of map and spatial data, dealing with virtual library users, and the current status of Webinar technology from a library perspective. Docherty and Faiks cite a definition from The Webopedia Online Computer and Internet Dictionary to explain the meaning of a webinar, namely: “Short for web‐based seminar, a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the web”. I found this especially a very useful chapter in bringing new technology to the front. The last chapter deals with the preservation of digital libraries.

The contributions are mostly well‐written, easy to follow and well‐researched. Emerging Issues concludes with an impressive 15‐page index. Although aimed at science librarians, Emerging Issues can really be recommended to librarians from all other environments, who would probably find themselves in very similar situations.