Information dissemination — A systems viewpoint

The dissemination of scientific information in society involves interfaces among a number of publics, a wide variety of formal and informal channels, and human factors such as the reading habits of users. While librarians, scholars, journal editors, and publishers have conducted their own studies, there is a need for examining the entire process of information dissemination from a “systemic” framework. Such a framework focuses on the efficiency of the total system as a criterion to generate attractive policy alternatives, i.e., by trying to minimize the total of all costs incurred at each stage of the author-publisher-library-user chain. This brings an increased emphasis on the interfaces between the various participants in the information dissemination system, analyses of which serve to clarify decisions regarding synoptic publications, interlibrary loans, etc.