A corporate library making the transition from traditional to Web publishing

摘要

Librarians have found their traditional roles in a state of flux during the past Internet-fueled decade. No longer expected to be mere custodians of information, we are becoming much more active in the dissemination of information beyond the walls of our facilities. For many corporate libraries, including Ford Motor Company's Research Library & Information Services (RLIS), an early step into this new publishing age has been taking existing paper materials and making them available in digitalformat. THE FORD RESEARCH LABORATORY AND US Much like employees at other industrial research and development facilities, scientists and engineers at Ford Research Laboratory (FRL) regularly produce proprietary reports dedicated to the progress of research projects. The scientific content consists of important technical contributions to Ford Motor Company. The publishing methodology for producing the traditional paper reports has ranged from the quaint (cut-and-pasted paper, typewritten) to the sophisticated (complex graphics and mathematical typesetting with TeX). Research technical reports are the most important vehicles for communicating the expertise and projects of FRL to Ford Motor Company. Typical of Ford culture, however, internal, proprietary, paper-based reports are not cataloged and distributed adequately. Ford's significant investments in its intranet infrastructure offered RLIS the opportunity to distribute these reports across Ford worldwide. Before the Web, RLIS would accept the technical reports in paper format. They were cataloged and stored in filing cabinets. Usage statistics demonstrated that most reports never left the cabinet. Given the importance of these technical reports in promoting the expertise and work of FRL, leaving them to languish in a glorified closet was an unacceptable situation. The solution was obvious: We would have to scrap paper publication in favor of Web publication.