Running through the labyrinth OR Efficient access to scientific information through the WWW in 2007.

This tutorial presentation gives an overview of information services that help us to find and access primary information sources fast, efficiently, effectively.

The information services can be categorized as
A. public services, available to all users through the WWW on a worldwide scale;
B. systems that have been set up by an organization for its members only, offering more focused and targeted services that make sense and offer added value primarily in the framework of this organization.

Ad A:
The information services for all can be categorized further:
- they can work in open access, available for all users through the WWW free of charge,
- or they are available to a user only after a fee has been paid by this user directly or at a higher level by his/her organization, region or country.
Here we spend most attention to
- open access services,
- academic, scholarly, scientific and technical information.

Ad B:
Systems that have been set up by an organization for its members only, can offer more focused and targeted services that make sense and that offer added value in the framework of the organization. Many universities have already installed such systems, in most cases under the responsibility of the library or information center. The two main building blocks of such a system are
1. software for federated searching = meta-searching; this allows searching through several databases / search engines simultaneously, in one action
2. starting from an item that has been found and that is known by the user, a link generator can create relevant links to related documents or services on the WWW, which are hopefully relevant for the user.

More information is available through the WWW:
about the author:
note: BIBLIO in uppercase (not "biblio" in lowercase)
http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/professional/
other tutorial materials available:
http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/courses/chapters/