SWAIN (Leigh) & CLEVELAND ( Gary ). Electronic Document Delivery and Libraries: Technologies, Strategies, and Issues. 16,1;1991;70-86
While access to bibliographic information has greatly improved through the use of information technologies, the delivery of primary documents to end-users remains largely dependant upon traditional manual methods: users can find what they need quickly and easily, but often experience long delays in receiving the request information. This disparity between information access and document supply potentially can be overcome through electronic document delivery the use of electronic forms of documents and transfer media to automate the entire documents delivery process, from the initial selection of a relevant citation, to the final delivery of the document. Such capabilities are especially important given the potential quantum leap in information access that will be enabled by emerging telecommunications infrastructures, such as research computer networks. This paper describes a number of converging technologies and international standards for electronic document generation, storage, and transfer that are becoming available to create electronic document delivery system, and attempts to provide strategies for their coordinated use. Some relevant issues are also explored.