She explained a phenomenon she calls disintermediation taking place in the development and flow of scientific information and demonstrated a few tools in pure and applied science. Gail arrived at the term disintermediation as a way to describe some of the impact the World Wide Web has on the way information is produced, disseminated, and used. Replacing the well-understood path of the traditional information chain, from author, to publisher, to secondary publisher, to online vendor, to library, to user, the web provides the potential for new roles and partnerships among stakeholders in the process. Librarians' and information professionals' roles as intermediaries between information sources and users are changing as users' direct access to information tools increases. The web as a platform for electronic information delivery and vendors' efforts to provide products designed for end users is resulting in improved products and services for users.
Intermediaries have opportunities to add value to the information in different ways.
The growing multiplicity of mechanisms now available for access to content makes librarians' decision-making about how to use their budgets most effectively to meet their community's information needs more complicated. Gail discussed plans to standardize metadata required for data and text on the web which can help users to address errors they encounter. Metadata should indicate who provided or submitted the data and should state data providers' intended purpose in making it available. Several specific web sites Gail demonstrated provide examples of new roles for delivery of information from author or publisher to end user, products online vendors are developing which are aimed at end users, and approaches publishers are using to add value to their products through web tools. Nancy Lambert , expert chemical patent researcher at Chevron Research Company in California, reviewed basic information about patents and presented updates and search tips for several online patent search products.