Sójkowska and Podgórski, Part 5
Additional Tools and Services
Portals will be the place for worldwide teleconferences and tele–seminars, which will enable the participation of many more people and discussion at scientific meetings as well as limiting the costs of business. They will become a routine activity and will replace traditional conferences and workshops.
Multimedia files will be archived and offered to the users with the possibility of retrieval for further analysis. They will also serve as educational material in classes. All the resources will be described in detail and made available through the expanded catalogue and advanced search engines, enabling access to interesting contents regardless of the user’s searching skills.
Besides the catalogue and search engine, portals will be equipped with other tools used for communication among the users, such as e–mail, multimedia chats and blogs.
Accessibility of Portals
It is expected that the high cost of creating portals will result in different levels of access. The possibility of access and use will depend on the purchase of subscriptions and the institution’s own contribution to the current contents of the service. This will provide an opportunity for the scientific community of less wealthy centers; by publishing on the portal’s site and actively participating in the development of science they will ensure themselves access to its resources.
The purchase of subscriptions and the individual’s involvement will enable the user to choose one of the following options of restricted access to:
- abstracts of text documents;
- full text of text documents;
- all documents; and,
- unrestricted access and possibility of using all tools including participation in multimedia meetings.
The Role of the Library in the Virtual Knowledge Centre
Currently, Library staff does not have much influence on the shape of the information services to which they provide access. Their role is to acquire and organize access to services and to promote them in the academic community. They prepare material that the users request and give instructions for independent research. With the appearance of knowledge portals, however, the role of the Library staff will become more valuable. They will continue to be brokers between information and those who need it, and they will also become coordinators of portals and assistants to academic staff.
The daily duties of the librarians will include timely cooperation with academic staff. Personnel of scientific and research centers will deliver complete materials to the Library and the librarians will edit, index and adjust them in accordance with the service principles and then deliver them to the portal.
Conclusions
Thanks to modern technologies and the integration of available resources, knowledge portals will replace the present services and will become virtual workplaces for scientists worldwide. They will enable global communication and exchange of ideas and thus the advancement of science. Application of advanced multimedia will enable the staff to work more effectively and will reduce costs borne for the research work.