Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!shelby!apple!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!csc.fi!harper
From: harper@csc.fi (Rob Harper (Supercomputer Centre Finland))
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: Electronic publication
Message-ID: <1990Oct6.103143.1@csc.fi>
Date: 6 Oct 90 10:31:43 GMT
References: <1990Oct4.224749.17702@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <90278.101449JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET>
Sender: usenet@nic.funet.fi
Organization: Finnish Academic and Research Network Project - FUNET
Lines: 34


In article <90278.101449JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET>, JAHAYES@MIAMIU.BITNET writes:

> I would urge the scientific community as a whole not to 
forget
> the economic realities in the non-technological parts of the
> world.
> ------

I was recently in Knoxville at an international meeting
on Biological Nitrogen Fixation. I did some demo's of the
BIOSCI newsgroups and the most enthusiastic people were
from the "third world" who could not believe their eyes
that the list of contents of major journals were being
published online a couple of months before the journals
would be available for sale.

I also showed the ANU NEWS interface to a visiting Professor
from Checkoslovakia who commented that when he gets Nature
it is 6 months old, and he can never get reprints since they
are all gone by the time he requests them.

I also know of projects at the University of Guelph where
they use a conferencing system called CoSy and they have
collaboration with Univrsities in Indonesia. Say a research
worker wants a literature search. There are people at Guelph
who will run the search on their library mainframe, and
dump it into the researchers mailbox for collection.

I think that this type of "Scientific interaction" is perhaps
the best possible "aid" that the first world can give to the
third.

Rob "do the right thing" Harper.