Electronic Publications: An Agenda for National Libraries and Publishers

A questionnaire survey of national libraries and publishers of electronic materials and their representatives) was conducted in order to identify the most important issues about archiving electronic publications. The purpose of the project was to gain a consensus on what the agenda should be for future discussions between national libraries and publishers. The questionnaire survey was preceded by a consultation with members of a Joint Committee of the Federation of European Publishers and the Conference of European National Librarians. The main issues identified as being important by both groups were: Copyright, Terms of access (including payment systems) and Metadata. It was recommended that ‘Terms of access' should become the priority for future discussion by the Joint Committee. The other two issues are already being tackled in European Parliament and the standards bodies. Under ‘Terms of access’, there were concerns about who should have access to archived electronic materials, how widely it should be available and the number of simultaneous users permitted. Other issues such as downoading also need to be investigated. It was generally agreed that national libraries should be the main repository for electronic publications. There was also agreement that offline publications such as CD-ROM and diskettes should be archived, but no consensus was shown about online publications such as Internet sites.