Library and Information Science

Until recently, the technology of information handling has been concentrated on secondary information but new developments in electronic technology have relieved us from limitations in the text length for handling. Existing full-text databases are now used for retrieval purposes rather than for reading. To convert these full-text databases into ones that provide easiness in reading, a new technology for skip-reading is pointed out as necessary. Also an important factor is the way of thinking of human readers. Publications in specialized fields are going to be more oriented to small quantity publishing and databases can be used for such purposes under certain conditions. In this case, however, some new concepts relating to databases, such as “original edition,” meaning of rights of publication and the liberty of processing by users, must be examined and established.