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Grey literature takes on new meanings as publishers and individuals create new products and release information in different ways. With several choices of access and delivery usually available in different formats, the difficulty once associated with publishing grey literature and the enormous expenses predicted for a relatively low volume, electronic publishing via html and pdf/Adobe Acrobat options, has created new models and opportunities, in an almost magical way. Information access in the global economy forces the information professional to be more aware of a wider spectrum of information, including traditional grey literature. As the hues change, the literature takes on a new sense of value. Explores different examples of scientific grey literature and suggests how it can be introduced to and by information specialists and how better training and exposure can reduce the obstacles in utilizing it more widely. By concentrating on new modes of publishing and delivery, the capabilities of information professionals are reinforced and grey literature in the sciences gains a more prominent role in a range of information use, access and dissemination activities.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance.

This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes.

There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past.

The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated.

The Chemistry Online Retrieval Experiment (CORE), a five‐year R&D project, was one of the earliest attempts to make a substantial volume of the text and graphics from previously published scholarly journals available to end‐users in electronic form, across a computer network. Since CORE dealt with material that had already gone through traditional print publication, its emphasis was on the process (and limitations) of conversion, the optimization of presentation, and use of the converted contents for readers. This article focuses on the user response to the system.

This paper aims to present a personal view of the development of digital libraries, starting with the original vision of 1945 and describing how it came to the dominance of online searching and reading that it has today.

Progress in digital libraries is described in four areas: technical, economic, legal and social issues. Originally technological obstacles were dominant, but they have generally been overcome by progress in computers, networks, and algorithms. Economic issues have also faded, although “open access” questions still bedevil us. Surprisingly, libraries are now faced with more serious legal obstacles than first expected; no one today can start a digital library effort without thinking about copyright. Social issues are likely to be the next set of challenges.

The transformation of searching and reading has been almost complete. Scholars in scientific disciplines, in particular, often function quite well with only rare visits to a library to read physical books. Even in the area of entertainment reading, it can be seen that the e‐reader devices now dominating. These results have been a combination of new research results and new commercial activities, with perhaps less progress by publishers and libraries than one might have hoped.

The development of digital libraries has been a complex mixture of change: there are ideas which were invented long before users or companies were ready for them, and other ideas (such as search engines) which appeared suddenly when opportunities arose. The complexities of technology, economics, law and society are still in the process of being understood as they either enable or block new services. However, looking back, it can be seen that essentially the entire vision of 1945 is in sight and other large improvements in complex systems and how they are helped or impeded in their progress may be learned from this story.

To highlight content of interest to this journal’s readership that promotes current thinking and activities in information technology.

A selective conference report of the annual meeting of the American Library Association and a pre‐conference.

The largest conference of librarians, the variety of programs, activities, exhibit halls, creates one of the best professional development opportunities for librarians. Attracting librarians from all sectors and work environments from around the globe, this conference is hard to describe in a brief way except to say it is an experience. Documenting relevant programs about information technology was the goal of this contribution.

An alternative to not being present while gaining some information and coverage.

Contains information of particular interest to readers who did not attend these sessions. Introducers them to presenters and important hot topics.

This issue of Library Hi Tech aims to offer a retrospective over the last 30 years of information technology as used in libraries and other memory institutions, particularly archives and museums. This Editorial will add the Editor's reflections.

The method uses historical documentation and relies heavily on personal recollection.

Thirty years ago information technology in libraries largely had to do with ways in which libraries could make their ordinary operations more efficient. Today the information science frontier has broken out of the comfortable institutional paradigm of the past and made libraries aware that they need to redefine themselves in a world where their buildings no longer represent a storehouse of knowledge unavailable elsewhere.

This paper reveals that information technology advances have not made libraries obsolete, but they have made it imperative that libraries redefine their role to be digital information managers and service providers for their readers.

Reports on the OCLC Users Council meeting of October 2‐4, 1994, which discussed, among other things: OCLC efforts to enhance PRISM; conversion work in Europe and in the Asia/Pacific region; the growth of FirstSearch; electronic library strategies; and research libraries projects.

Explains the necessity for measurement of Internet growth so that capacity, commercial potential, etc. may be planned and assessed. Argues that this cannot be measured merely by packet counts and user registrations. Presents detailed analysis of over 13,000 sites, worldwide. Develops a mathematical model which can be used to predict growth, by individual countries and globally. Offers further topics for future research.

An indexing language is made more accessible to searchers and indexers by the presence of entry terms or near‐synonyms. This paper first presents an evaluation of existing entry terms and then presents and tests a strategy for creating entry terms. The key tools in the evaluation of the entry terms are documents already indexed into the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and an automatic indexer. If the automatic indexer can better map the title to the index terms with the use of entry terms than without entry terms, then the entry terms have helped. Sensitive assessment of the automatic indexer requires the introduction of measures of conceptual closeness between the computer and human output. With the tools described in this paper, one can systematically demonstrate that certain entry terms have ambiguous meanings. In the selection of new entry terms another controlled vocabulary or thesaurus, called the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED), was consulted. An algorithm for mapping terms from SNOMED to MeSH was implemented and evaluated with the automatic indexer. The new SNOMED‐based entry terms did not help indexing but did show how new concepts might be identified which would constitute meaningful amendments to MeSH. Finally, an improved algorithm for combining two thesauri was applied to the Computing Reviews Classification Structure (CRCS) and MeSH. CRCS plus MeSH supported better indexing than did MeSH alone.