Book Description

This book is the outcome of an international workshop held at Essex University in August 1997. It fulfils three unique functions. It examines obstacles and solutions to the promotion of access to and the dissemination of social science information. In general, little attention has been paid to the dissemination of social science information either nationally of internationally, despite the fact that the information revolution is constantly in the headlines. It brings together specialists from Russia, Eastern and Western Europe to discuss these issues from the broad European perspective, although particular attention is paid to the problems of dissemination and access in Russia and Eastern Europe which are rarely addressed in the Western literature. It also brings together specialists from the three major communities involved in the circulation of information, groups which rarely speak to each other: data providers, data brokers and data users. The result is a series of illuminating insights into the access and dissemination issues confronting these different geographical and functional communities and some imaginative proposals about ways in which obstacles and problems might be overcome.