ELDORADOC : promised land of gold ?

This paper summarizes the main experiences in the starting period of the project ELDORADOC, a pilot study at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands aiming at the disclosure and distribution of refereed electronic documents. ELDORADOC is one of the SURFDOC projects in the Netherlands where activities are initiated in order to gain insight in the technical, organisational and end user issues of the storage and disclosure of electronic documents. A brief overview of these SURFDOC projects is given. ELDORADOC is based on a conceptual model that gave rise to several activities needed for the success of the project. Conceptual model and activities relevant to the subject of this paper are discussed, such as the role of the 'Open Library Network', the electronic document collections, document sources and how they are transformed to electronic collections, which document formats are appropriate, the interaction between the document store and requirements of software needed to disclose the material. In a concluding chapter the problems we encountered (and the possible solutions we have in mind) will be discussed with the intention of triggering collaborative initiatives to enhance the quality of networked information.