An overview of electronic document request and delivery research

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. Abstract: This paper presents an overview of past and present research projects associated with electronic document delivery. The paper briefly outlines the Follet Report and introduces the UK's Electronics Libraries Programme, including the recently funded Focused Investigation of Document Delivery (FIDDO) project at Loughborough University. Four research areas have been identified as follows: resource sharing projects; network communication projects; electronic scanning projects and electronic document delivery systems.Conclusions highlight the major impact that technological developments are currently having on this area, the need for librarians to reassess their role in the information chain, and the need for delivery systems capable of handling different formats and a wider coverage of material to satisfy requests.

An overview of commercial electronic document delivery suppliers and services

“…This paper focuses on commercial document delivery services that provide some form of electronic document delivery, and aims to update earlier research work. It complements another paper reviewing recent project work in this area (Price et al 1996). However, this paper has not been restricted to services that only provide a complete electronic service, right from the identification stage through to actual delivery and payment of documents, but also includes services with an electronic service element.…”