Network resource discovery: a European library perspective

Lorcan Dempsey

UKOLN: the Office for Library and Information Networking

University of Bath

4 August 1994

Paper presented to the British Library R&D Department

Libraries, networks and Europe: a European networking study. Neil Smith (ed).

London: British Library Research & Development Department, 1994

(LIR Series; 101)

ISBN: 0712332952

Introduction

The proliferation of new information resources, the rapid development of access and retrieval methods associated with them, and the unprecedented creation of global electronic information and communication resources have made the Internet an important component of many users' information environments.

A number of tools have emerged which facilitate the creation, discovery and use of network resources: they allow users to 'publish' on the network, to browse and search for resources of interest, and to organise or create custom views of resources. These are now the focus of intense research and technical development. Terminological fluidity is typical of any rapidly developing field. A number of terms are current, none of which has a precise referent: resource discovery, network information retrieval (NIR), network information discovery and retrieval (NIDR), network navigation, search and retrieve, access tools. For convenience in this paper I propose to use a new term, RADAR, whose sense is inclusive of these others, but avoids any partial or sectoral associations they may have. RADAR stands for Resource Access, Discovery and Retrieval. RADAR systems allow users to access resources; to discover what resources are available; and to retrieve found resources. It is also pleasingly apt for the purposes of this article as it places the emphasis on resource access and discovery, rather than on creation and "publication". This is not to suggest that these are not increasingly related processes. Gopher and WorldWideWeb, for example, are proving to be increasingly popular publishing mechanisms. In fact, advances in the ease with which resources can be published have not been matched by advances in a discovery apparatus, to the extent that immature resource discovery systems are now a major inhibitor of effective use of network information.

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