The future has already begun. The information superhighway, hypermedia, digital libraries and electronic publishing are not vague concepts anymore that might be awaiting us beyond the year 2000. Instead, they are already here. Each day our electronic mailbox is flooded with announcements about new sites on the World Wide Web that vie for our attention. More and more information resources are easily accessible and need to be checked out. Modern communication technology has brought us so close together that all the information available anywhere on this planet seems to be at our fingertips. This is the Information Age.
For us librarians, these are not only extremely fascinating, but also very challenging, times. Librarians have been information providers for centuries, and nowadays we have the opportunity to use tools that allow us to provide an even quicker, more complete and sometimes more sophisticated service to our users. Databases and reference sources can be queried via the Internet, library catalogs are available remotely, newsgroups and mailing lists provide a wonderful opportunity to discuss mutual concerns quickly, and electronic mail allows us to contact colleagues who might be able to help us solve a problem. And all this can be done within a minimum of time.
Technology will take us one step further very soon. It is no longer only references and information about documents that is provided electronically, but also full texts of publications that have become available in digitized form. If we look for information about a particular topic today, we can start for instance by querying a library catalog on the World Wide Web (WWW). The results we receive might consist of some formal bibliographic data like authors, title, and publication date. Some contents-related information (keywords, thesaurus descriptors, or the contents table) may be included as well. Plus, we may have the opportunity to access the abstract or even the entire text, as well as graphics, tables, video sequences, or an embedded software program that can be run locally. The references at the end of the publication are active links. One mouseclick, and we move on to the referenced paper without even noticing where exactly we are going on the network. Another mouseclick, and a search engine finds other publications dealing with similar topics that also might be of interest to us. Particularly useful documents can be printed or downloaded onto our own computer for later use. The search strategy we chose to find these publications can be stored and reused whenever needed.
Access to information is becoming more and more seamless. The year 1997 is a milestone in astronomical publishing, as some of the most important publishers recently launched electronic versions of their journals or intend to do so in the course of the year. However, various barriers currently impede immediate access to every piece of information. In the following, we will look at the many advantages of electronic publications, but will also focus on some of the questions and unresolved problems.
Change in general, and technological change in particular, has its price. Librarians are worried about some of the current developments and therefore speak up if short-sighted decisions are being taken. Neil Postman, a North American communications theorist, stated in his book ``Technopoly'' that
[...] it is a mistake to suppose that any technological innovation has a one-sided effect. Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that. (Postman, 1992, pp. 4-5)
It is necessary to be aware of both the positive and the negative implications in order to make the most efficient use of technology.