Europeans fear loss of electronic publications

The importance of storing electronically published research findings and papers so that they can be easily accessed was underlined this week by Academia Europaea when its representatives met Sir Robert May, Britain's chief scientist.

The group, with 1,700 members from 34 countries, says it needs to be decided Europewide who is to be responsible for storing the increasing number of academic papers and data being published electronically. Otherwise, it says, large quantities of research findings risk becoming inaccessible. As technology is updated, the group also stressed the need to maintain and increase the electronic bandwidth over which academics communicate.