Link and <link.library>: Resources for north‐south library development

The rapid growth of the Internet in recent years as a means of delivering information has had a number of profound effects. Information providers (such as libraries and publishers) wish to provide full text document delivery, although they often have concerns about receiving remuneration for it This is balanced by end‐users becoming aware that, despite the vast amount of ‘free’ information on the Internet, and especially the World Wide Web, ‘good’ information may require payment In parallel with this, the growing commercialisation of the Internet has resulted in the development of mechanisms and systems which support commercial transactions over open, public networks. A European funded research project, COPINET, has been investigating all these areas. Part of the COPINET project workplan was to conduct a survey of the available technologies for electronic commerce over the World Wide Web and this paper gives an overview of the main systems available. The whole domain is undergoing such rapid changes that it is almost impossible to be completely current, but most of the systems described here have been in existence for the life of the project