Jacqueline GILLET
Head of interlibrary loan service
E-Publishing and Document Supply Department
INIST-CNRS

Abstract

Access to scientific and technical information has undergone important modifications in the past few years. Today, researchers have access to electronic resources through web portals dedicated to their community (“big deals”) and open archives and institutional repositories. They merely need their library to find and obtain articles in more rare, more specialized or older serials.

At the same time the legal environment changes and the commercial publishers start to define their “level playing field” in order to increase benefits from the document delivery market (“pay per view”).

In this difficult context, sharing resource and networking on a national and international level become essential for the great public STI centres.

This article highlights how INIST-CNRS, the Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, French leader in the document delivery market, works with a broad national and international network of some 200 libraries and STI centres. It also provides an overview on the recent developments of the French academic ILL network and of the French law on author’s rights, and it informs about the negotiations with publishers on secure electronic delivery.