1 The information industry and the information market Summary

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The information industry and the information market

Summary

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The components of the summary

The following gives an overview of the information industry and the information market:

1. The components, the building blocks of the information industry

2. An overview of the products of the information industry and of the evolution

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The components of the information industry

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The components of the information industry

• Authors

• Publishers

• Distributors

• Users

• Related organizations

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Authors,the base of the information life cycle

• Authors compose thoughts or compile data in information products for further distribution. So they form the base of the information life cycle.

• Authors can be

»individuals,

»organizations, committees, companies, government entities,...

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Products by authors

• Documents for open distribution / publication

• Documents created for limited distribution,such as for internal use only: gray / grey literature

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Primary publishers

• Primary publishers create

»Books

»Journals

»Proceedings

»Newspapers

»Patents

»Series

»...

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Secondary publishers

• Secondary publishers produce works that combine or are based upon a variety of primary works

»Indexes

»Abstracts

»Collections of previously published papers

»Bibliographies

»Reference works

»...

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Documentary information distributors

• Direct sales groups for large publishers

• Book sellers

• Serial (journal) vendors = subscription agencies

• Clearinghouses

• Online hosts / databanks / vendors

• Document delivery firms

• Interlibrary loan groups

• ...

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Information users

• Driving force behind the information industry

• They acquire information

»for their own use

—writers, researchers, ...

»on behalf of another user

—search intermediaries, information brokers, libraries, ...

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The flow of information through journals: scheme

Authors

Editors

Journal distributors

Libraries

End-users / readers

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The information market: buying or licensing

• Buying = paying for access to information for an unlimited period of time

»for instance: a printed book or journal, some databases on CD-ROM,...

• Licensing contracts = paying for access to information for a limited period of time

»for instance: many databases made accessible on CD-ROM or online

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Online access from an institute to information: methods

• On a local server computer, maintained by the institute for their users

»for a fixed price per year, paid by the institute to the information distributor

• On an external online computer host/server systems !

»supermarket model: select and pay for selected information only

»fixed price per year, paid by the institute to the information distributor

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Overview and evolution

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Increase in the number of scientific and technical serial publications

1

10

100

1000

10000

100000

1000000

1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

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Evolution of the information industry: measures

• Number of living databases.

• Number of database producers.

• Number of database vendors (including online services).

• Number of database records / documents.

• Number of online searches per year.

• ...

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The information market: growth in the database industry

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

Number oflivingdatabases

Number ofdatabaseproducers

Number ofvendors

Source: Williams, in: Gale Directory of Databases, 1998.Source: Williams, in: Gale Directory of Databases, 1998.

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Databases classified by form of data representation (in 1995)


Databases were classified in one or more categories and normalized to 1 class per database

Word-oriented

Number-oriented

Image-oriented

Sound-oriented = Audio

Electronic services

Software / Programs

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Word-oriented databases: evolution of bibliographic & full-text databases

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995

# Full text databases

# Bibliographic databases

Source: Williams, in: Gale Directory of Databases 1996.Source: Williams, in: Gale Directory of Databases 1996.

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Media for database distribution / access (in 1995)

A database may be available on several media

OnlineCD-ROMDisketteMagnetic tapeBatchHandheld


!? Question !? Task !? Problem !?

Which trends do we see in the information industry / market?

Which trends do we see in the information industry / market?

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The information industry / market: future trends (Part 1)

• Growth in the production of databases.

• Less analogue / hard-copy production = more digital production, storage, and distribution of information.

• More integration of information types into multimedia and hypermedia.

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The information industry / market: future trends (Part 2)

• Growth in the number of

»producers and distributors,

»end-users searching databases due to easier use and lower costs of information technology