Although this process looked very unusual and less effective, it had the merit of being the only window for Chinese professionals to look for and find information from abroad electronically. The service contributed a great deal to scientific research and industrial development in China's economic reformation in the early 1980s. During the next few years, linking Beijing directly with other countries and local cities for information retrieval purposes was one of the highest priorities of government information centers. From 1984 to 1991, nearly 200 international online searching terminals were put into use in nearly 50 cities throughout the country, with an average of 18,000 search requests each year. Most of the searches focused on sciences, technologies, medical and biomedical sciences and agriculture.
High costs represent the major challenge of international online services.
Search requests typically have come from government units and major academic and research units because the cost of online searching has been very high. For example, the average cost for each search was 300 Chinese Yuan in 1990, which could equal one-month's salary for a middle class person. Another challenge is the difficulty of obtaining original sources in a timely and economic way. The high cost of foreign journals, lack of consistent acquisition for foreign materials, and unreliable access to foreign proceedings and technical reports all contribute to this problem. Since the late-1970s, about 60 databases have been imported.