Annexe 2 : grilles d’entretiens

La première grille d’entretien

Future of Abstracting & Indexing Database industry
Threats and solutions

I- The new trends in the bibliographic information industry

• Bibliographic databases producers used to be the first players in field of information industry. Newcomers such as Yahoo, Hovers, AltaVista has been emerged to the market. These search engines that brought information retrieval to millions of end users are considered as the first agents in the new economy. In your opinion what are the causes of such a change?
• CrossRef has allowed the publishers to produce bibliographic records for their own articles. Do you think that this new publishers-procedure will constitute a threat to the bibliographical databases producers? And Why?
• When every database developed by the government for internal use, like PubScience, made available free worldwide on the governmental office’s web site, the danger of public sector increase. So, should the commercial producers accept this competition? Are there any rules that define the roles of the public agencies?
• The emergence of the web allowed Cd-Rom distributor like Silver Platter to be as an intermediate in the information distribution filed. This role was already played by the traditional servers who have a long experience in the filed. In this case what are the offers that distinct this new « infomedaire »?
• The fall of techno-economic barriers and the partial emancipation of the producers due to the CD-ROM and the decline of the profitability of the non-specialized catalogs lead to the concentration of the servers. What do you think about this? What is the future of servers?
• With the continuous free access to the bibliographical databases on the Internet, the following question arises: Is still there a market for this type of data (paid bibliographical databases) if yes, theses databases still have the same customers? Can bibliographic information marketplace still be autonomous? 

II- Solutions

• The Free offers that is available on the Internet, the new entrants, the decline of profits and the concentration, these things made bibliographical databases actors search for other solutions such as the following::
• The appropriation of new roles: In order to face the new challenges, the producers of bibliographic databases have to define their principle competence and to search for new role such as the creation of the standardization norms and to offer the links with the primary sources. What do you think about this new roles?
• Electronic indexing: The manual indexing makes the production cost of a bibliographical database very high. Do you think that the electronic indexing would be a solution to reduce the cost? What are the technical problems that delay the transformation to a complete electronic indexing?
• Specializing of the offer: Do you think that the specialization of the offer in a certain domain will be a solution for the small actors?
• The development of marketing policies: These days the companies are more in need of a market experience than the technical one. -Is the improvement of marketing policy would be a solution for traditional bibliographical databases actors? How?
• What are the elements that must be added to the information product in order to give it a commercial value?
• Target the business community: The competition in the information marketplace require an extra work from the competitors for targeting the business communities by identifying the needs of final users, by gathering the internal and external information about the company in the same interface. Do you thing that the actors of bibliographical market should do that?
• Exploration of other markets: The cultural and linguistically verities in the European markets obliged the information company to lunch local product special to this kind of market
• Do you think that the European companies could compete with the American market in term of production and distribution?
• Evolution towards a one-stop shop: Do you think that the guarantee for a better future, for producers, servers of bibliographical information market, is to be a one-stop-shop, which brings together internal and external information about the companies, the information services (advice, training), etc.?
• This platform is proposed by other actors of the market (editors infomedaires), according to you What are the elements that distinguish an offer from on actors to the other?
• One of the current tendencies of the information industry is to consolidate with competitors. Such steps could destabilize the structure of the market.  Do you agree with this point of view?
• At the moment, there is no clear economic model for the information market. Studies on the subject expect that free information, without sacrificing the quality of the product, will be the future economical model. What do you think about that?
• So as to overcome the continuous loss in their profits, the actors now have more possibilities such as putting advertising on their web site, and consequently by the transactions fees taken from the advertising company as a result of that. De you think that these ways are sufficient?

III- Relationship between players of the contents market

• Bibliographic databases such as EMABS and MEDLINE become more and more diffused by their producers. In your opinion how we could define this new relation arises between the producers – diffusers on one side and the servers on the other?.
• What is the new role that the bibliographic information could play in the global contents market? 
• The new entrants such as the infomediaires, portals, technologies producer, and editors of contents are a results of the impact of the Internet over many sectors of information industry. In your opinion
• How do you see the new role of the servers and the bibliographical databases producers?
• What are the added values that could bring to the bibliographic information market the editors, the portals, and the search engines?
• Who, among these actors, will play the essential role in the bibliographic information offer and how do you imagine the scenario of the future competition between these actors?