The role of librarians in facilitating access to information that is appropriate to the particular clientele served is fundamentally the same whether dealing with print or electronic materials. As the field of electronic publishing evolves, MLA maintains that librarians must continue to be the key information access facilitators, developing institutional access policies and customized interfaces, negotiating licenses, and effectively managing budgets. Preservation and Archiving In the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, Congress recognized the value of information preservation when it updated the Copyright Act to permit a library or archive to reproduce up to three copies of a work for purposes of preservation. It is imperative that librarians continue to play a strong role in addressing the importance of preservation and archiving in all electronic publishing models that emerge in the future. Conclusion Current electronic information access proposals and projects have the potential to revolutionize the way that scientific and clinical information is communicated.
Technology brings risk.
Each stakeholder in the biomedical community - researchers, society publishers, for profit publishers, institutional administrators, students, patients, etc. Librarians have traditionally played a key role in helping to balance these various and sometimes competing interests in service of the idea of making sure that each constituency has access to the information that it needs, when it needs it, and in the most easily accessible form. The importance of collaboration among the academic community, the library profession, and all information producers and consumers to fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of electronic publishing schemes has never been more important, and will assume even greater importance as technology produces platforms that integrate image and text, sound and motion. For more information, contact Mary Langman , 312.419.9094 x27.