A technological and infrastructural challenge: a superdatabase for accessing all electronically published science and technology articles at once

The ever-increasing flow of scientific and technical articles poses problems with respect to their retrieval. Many databases contain a wealth of information, but the users are confronted with several shortcomings, many of which are related in one way or another, with the technological nature of the publications. Another major problem is the duplicate storage of data by the numerous databases, whereas data on many other publications cannot be found in any of these databases. A solution is presented for those articles that will be published in an electronic form: a 'superdatabase' should be linked to all electronic publishers in such a way that the relevant data concerning online articles are automatically transferred to this superdatabase. Users can thus be sure that they can find all articles on a specific topic, without the possibility that some of the more important material might be overlooked. The solution proposed may increase the quality of the material to be published, may speed up the availability of data on newly published material, may result in payment for the authors, and will guarantee a reasonable fee for the publisher, for each article that will be downloaded.