For those of us whose daily bread involves searching for and analysing snippets of business information, it is easy to forget that for the large proportion of information professionals employed in the scientific and medical sectors, the traditional library function of retrieving and disseminating entire documents remains an important part of their responsibilities.
However, while finding patents or retrieving articles for peer-review purposes may be a classic task, it is taking place against the current backdrop of economic restraints, ever-changing technology and demands for copyright compliance. (see Joanna Ptolomey's recent posting: http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27751). The importance of document retrieval in the library profession was confirmed by Outsell's 2008 report (http://www.outsellinc.com/store/products/722) on the subject, which compared and evaluated key suppliers.
Yesterday's Content Workflow 2010 event in Frankfurt (http://www.contentworkflow.eu/) was organised by Reprints Desk (http://www2.reprintsdesk.com/), a relatively new company in the document delivery arena. Four speakers, representing end-users and providers of solutions sought to address the important issue of how to integrate STM content into the workflow of information professionals and to explore the implications for copyright compliance. The capacity audience was largely made up of representatives from pharmaceutical companies and was there to hear about how to distribute vital information while ensuring copyright compliance.
Henning Nielsen, Library Director at Novo Nordisk and President of the Pharma Documentation Ring (http://www.p-d-r.com/), described how within pharmaceutical companies, each process in the development of a drug required information that is integrated into workflows. Despite a plethora of collaborative web tools, Nielsen believed that search tools are still not sophisticated enough to be able to integrate external and internal information and doubted whether social media technologies could be adapted for work purposes.
Nielsen called copyright the 'biggest usage killer in today's information environment' -- a controversial statement from a representative of an industry that survives on intellectual property rights. Nielsen believed the requirement to clear copyright at various levels was preventing end-users from benefiting from information and that there was little attempt at making copyright more uniform. He called for a collaboration between aggregators and right holders. On a more practical level, he believed that content workflow technology is most valuable to those groups scouring the licensing part of the drug development process.
William Hayes, Director of Library & Literature Informatics at biotechnology firm Biogen Idec called for more 'integgregation' -- the practice of aggregating and integrating information. Hayes believed this was 'the last mile' in information delivery, and where information is most valuable to its end-users. The Biogen Idec Library uses the Drupal content management system, which automatically updates information, while also allowing users to change data manually -- the best of both worlds. Hayes referred to several workflow tools such as wikis, Yahoo Pipes and iGoogle, all of which his library employs, but acknowledged that changing people's workflow habits was a long-term process. The issue of licensing is also a major problem at Biogen Idec. How do you track usage of information and compensate the providers? Hayes believed introducing concurrent licensing was a step in the right direction. To learn more about William Hayes' ideas on content workflow, read his blog at http://williamhayes.org/blog/
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Penny Crossland is the owner of CH Business Research, a consultancy specialising in investigative research and market intelligence. Penny conducts research projects for clients from a variety of industry sectors, including financial services, management and security consultancy, FMCG, publishing and retail. Fluent in German, she also translates academic papers and corporate material.
Before establishing her business in 2001, Penny was Research Manager at OC&C Strategy Consultants in London. Penny graduated from Bristol University with a degree in German and Politics and has a Masters degree from London University in contemporary German Literature. She became interested in all aspects of business information through working for an industrial market research company in New York.
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