NFAIS releases guiding principles on reference linking

Citation

(2004), "NFAIS releases guiding principles on reference linking", The Electronic Library, Vol. 22 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2004.26322aab.010

NFAIS releases guiding principles on reference linking

NFAIS releases guiding principles on reference linking

NFAIS, a membership association for organizations that aggregate, organize and facilitate access to information, has released a set of guiding principles with regard to reference linking, and is encouraging all those involved in any aspect of information creation and/or distribution to provide for such a capability in their products and services.

"The organization strongly believes that industry-wide collaboration in support of reference linking is essential to managing the flow of scholarly communication", stated NFAIS president, Marjorie Hlava. "Reference linking provides a seamless navigation between bibliographic and full-text databases, speeding the research process and ultimately accelerating discovery across all scholarly disciplines as well as in business".

Hlava noted that NFAIS established a Linking Committee several years ago to determine the interest of members – and their customers – in promoting information linking as an industry norm. Interest proved to be quite high and resulted in the creation of the guiding principles. Linda Beebe, chair of the NFAIS Linking Committee, stated: "We have found that in today's electronic information environment users want and expect the capability of linking between bibliographic and full text databases, and that this expectation is reinforced when they or their organization have usage rights to both types of files. Certainly such a capability enriches the users' search experience, and from an information provider's perspective, we believe that it enhances the value of the databases and that it will eventually increase usage".

Hlava and Beebe reported that the NFAIS Board of Directors was unanimous in its acceptance of the guiding principles and that individual member endorsement has been very positive. NFAIS will continue to promote reference linking through other activities, and encourages anyone who has an interest to become actively involved in the NFAIS Information Linking Committee.

NFAIS believes that increased access to information will serve the needs of the worldwide community of information users in addition to benefiting its member organizations. NFAIS therefore encourages the development and implementation of any new technology that contributes to this objective, while recognizing the legal rights of both information providers and users.

NFAIS believes that technology facilitating the seamless navigation between electronic bibliographic and full-text databases represents a critical step forward in the evolution of information distribution. Linking technology accomplishes the following:

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  greatly enriches the end-user's experience through the synergistic combination of precision search tools and the gratification of immediate access to relevant full-text;

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  accelerates advancements in scholarly research and in business through a parallel acceleration of the information search and retrieval process and, as a result of these two factors; and

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  increases the value and utility of each of the linked resources.

Because of the value that linking technology brings to the flow of information between author and user, NFAIS strongly endorses the following guiding principles:

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  Linking between electronic resources owned or licensed by a single entity should be strongly encouraged and widely permitted.

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  Full-text publishers, information aggregators, and abstracting and information services should pro-actively engage in collaborative efforts to link their resources as long as a secure information environment is in place.

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  Information purchasers and users should expect and request broad-based linking capabilities from their information and technology providers in order to maximize the return on their investment in those resources.

NFAIS member organizations were founded to effectively and efficiently manage the flow of documented information to all those who need it. They have consistently initiated and embraced advances in information technology to ensure that their products and services evolve in alignment with the ever-changing needs of their user communities. Broad-based linking represents just such an advance, and NFAIS strongly recommends that it, too, be embraced and used to the advantage of all members of the Information Community.