Maurits van der Graaf
Director NBOI
PO box 997
IOOO AZ Amsterdam
Tel 020-5510852
Fax 020-6276050
Email vandergraaf@nboi.nl
In 1991 the Norwegian Computing
centre for the Humanities organized an international conference
on research documentation, to my knowledge the first of its kind
in Europe. At this conference it was generally concluded
that such conferences should be held periodically and the Netherlands
Current Research Agency (NBOI) offered to host the next conference.
This conference is called 'Current Research Information in Europe'
and has been financially made possible by subsidies from the EEC
Directorates General XII and Xlll. The themes of the conference
have been prepared by the programme committee consisting of Drs.
A. van Dijk (Chairman), Mr. J.H. Hauge, Dr. I.A. Perry, Mr. M.
Bellardinelli, Dr. A. Marks, Drs. J. van de Walle, Ms.Mr. M.A.
van 't Veen and Mr. W.L. Renault. The NBOI staff, notably Drs.
M.J. de Goede, took care of the practicalities of the conference
organization.
Each Current Research database
producer faces two major problems:
l) the acquisition of the research information is often difficult
2) the usage of the Current Research information (electronically or printed) is limited.
These problems are interrelated:
because of the low usage, the scientific world is hardly motivated
to spend time and energy in providing research information to
the database producer. Therefore the coverage of the database
is limited, which does not help to attract more users and usage.
Thus, a Current Research database producer could easily enter
a downward spiral.
The question arises whether Current
Research Databases have a raison d'etre. In the starting phase
of a promotion campaign for the Dutch Current Research Database
(Nederlandse Onderzoek Databank) a telephone survey was held under
a representative sample of Dutch university scientists. The key
question in this survey was: 'Do you need current research information
in your profession?' A large majority answered positive and indeed
only a few percent of the scientists were not interested
in current research information at all. When asked how they acquired
the information, three items scored very high: personal contacts,
congresses and the scientific literature.
Two outcomes of this survey are of
special relevance to this conference:
l)very few scientists mentioned
databases as a source for their gathering of current research
information
2)nearly all scientists were interested in international
current research information.
From an international viewpoint the
Current Research information providers are presently very fragmentated:
in a study done by the NBOI more than 100 Current Research Database
were identified, which were made available on more than 70 different
hosts! In my view Current Research databases can safeguard their
raison d'etre and at the same time solve their above mentioned
problems by attracting many users from the scientific world.
This clearly means to offer more than national Current Research
Information. In line with this view the main themes of this conference
are on user needs and about creating an international access to
Current Research information. Such an international cooperation
is urgently necessary for many Current Research databases in order
to avoid the above mentioned negative spiral. I think herein
lies the special significance of this conference: by listening
to each other and exchanging experiences this conference should
speed up international cooperation in order to give the scientists
the International Information on Current Research they are asking
for.
1 see for more information page 67,
Ms.Mr. M.A. van 't Veen
2 see for more information page
97, Ir. L. de Lavicter
