If electronic publications are received offline, i.e., on physical
media, they will be
treated in libraries similar to print media. Items will be
cataloged and shelved and will be retrievable through the library catalog.
Networked electronic media have to be cataloged, too,
and library records must be enhanced so
that all available archival information
can be included in catalog entries. The Dublin Core
Metadata Element set provides a resource description that will
improve access to information on networks.
If national libraries become digital archives, electronic publications will
appear in the respective national bibliographies
which will make their
retrieval easier than it is today (Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1995).
However, the ability to
retrieve networked electronic publications in distributed
systems depends not only on their appearance in library catalogs and
bibliographies, but also on a reliable global naming and address system.
Current network addresses still depend on the Uniform Resource Locator
(URL). But URLs are easily mistyped and
can lead to error messages when trying to access networked documents.
Name resolvers which are already used by some electronic astronomical
journals allow a unique name to be
assigned
to an online publication that will not be changed even if the document is
moved to another server. The name resolver will keep track of the actual
location of the requested file and translate the name into the current
network address.