CURRENT AWARENESS IN AN ELECTRONIC AGE

Technological developments such as the Internet mean that it is necessary to revisit the role and nature of current awareness services and even to reflect on the more fundamental question — what is current information? The information that is available to the business end‐user over the Internet is normally updated with a frequency that is consistent with the nature of the information. Thus, many news and financial information sources provide real time information. Many database producers supply databases on CD‐ROM, with the opportunity to update databases through access to the Internet. For instance, JUSTIS offer a wide range of online updates to the JUSTIS CD‐ROM database. Many Wilson databases that are distributed on CD‐ROM are updated weekly on WilsonWeb. To give a commercial example, Tesco, in their home shopping trials, deliver a product catalogue on CD‐ROM to trial homes. Customers can access Tesco's server over the Internet with a view to placing an order, or to update catalogue details, with new information on, say, prices, special offers, or new product lines.