Moving forward in e-business / Distribution of scientific content via intermediaries

The focus of this paper is on intermediaries for scientific information defined by the global journal subscription agents, the largest ones being Swets Blackwell, Rowecom and Ebsco. It is clear that traditional relationships in the information chain are changing with the advancement of electronic information delivery. Libraries, publishers and subscription agents are being presented with challenges to their familiar roles and positions in scholarly communication. New pricing and ways of ‘selling’ information (e.g. to consortia, individual articles, linking of various content types) present new procedures and systems, which also highlight the strong need for agents as intermediaries in the electronic environment.