Developing the World's Digital Collection on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy
Emil Levine
Head, INIS Clearinghouse
International Atomic Energy Agency
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Abstract
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now producing the world's foremost
digital collection on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. During
the developmental period, both the Secretariat in Vienna and Member
States inputting centers had to revise procedures that had been
in place for 25 years. The project must be administered in a manner
that is consistent with the capabilities of the decentralized
inputting centers in both highly developed and developing countries,
a challenge that requires diplomacy as well as an understanding
of information technologies, capabilities and requirements in
a multicultured, world-wide organization. Because of the decentralized
nature of INIS, the Secretariat and Member States can be considered
Users, Developers and Maintainers. The development
of this digital collection opens new possibilities for world-wide
document delivery, including CD-ROM, faxback, linking images to
bibliographic databases for viewing over the WWW, linking full
text images to the INIS database on CD-ROM, and development of
a virtual library. Of particular significance is the fact that
the cost of the digital collection is approximately one third
the price of the same collection on microfiche. Under future
consideration is use of a microfiche to image scanner for backfile
conversion of selected portions of the existing database (318,000
reports), repackaging documents by subject (e.g., Nuclear Waste
Management) and use of DVD to reduce the number of CD-ROMs required
for the database.