Full text primary information online: today's problems, tomorrow's solutions

Abstract

Electronic delivery of full text primary literature is an enigma to all of us. On one hand, information intermediaries and end users tell us how important it is to them and their research; while on the other hand, its increased availability online has not been accompanied by a corresponding growth in file usage and revenues. There are five reasons for this apparent dichotomy: 1 the depth of the files in terms of years is insufficient; 2 the breadth of the information or availability of the literature online is too limited; 3 the information that is online is not complete; 4 full text primary literature is usually technically isolated from secondary and tertiary sources of online information; and 5 the user perception of full text itself inhibits usage. The solution to these inhibiting factors, today's problems, lies with altering or changing the economics, and behavioral patterns of full text. The future of online full text information will be in a large part based on such economic factors as storage costs of the literature and the conversion process of the data from the printed to the electronic edition. It will also be based on changing the behavioral patterns of information intermediaries and end users. This will only be accomplished by providing the user sophisticated capabilities to retrieve online information: 1 combining full text, bibliographic, and numeric files; 2 producing artificial intelligence interfaces; 3 and allowing search and display of graphics. It will be incumbent upon vendors and suppliers of online information to make these changes to ensure the future of online, full text literature.