Computer conference in information service

The Technical Information Service of the Technical Research Centre of Finland has studied the role of computer conference (CC) within information service communities. The integration of adp-, storage and telecommunication technology by the help of CC systems is making it possible for the knowledge workers to do their jobs much more effectively. Computer Conference is an asyncronous meeting with typed messages and additionally the CC software usually supports text processing, collaborative electronic publishing, information retrieving and personal documentation, though there are signs that it will be more reasonable to use some of these facilities locally, when communicating micro computers come into wider use. The connections of the CC systems to other telematic technology, CC systems configurations and several examples of their use in practice will be introduced. The CC software, COM and EIES are examined more closely. On the idea level it is possible (1) to use CC within the information service professionals and (2) to offer information services to the clients via CC software. These ideas are examined and the former studies are explained in the report. The practical experiments for offering information services via the CC system were performed by COM software in Finland and Sweden. As CC communities mainly include adp experts, the use of online references was quite low. The break-through of the CC systems still waits for the spreading of personal work stations and after that rises the need for studying human communication via CC systems more thoroughly. For the information specialists this emergence of CC systems means e.g. the need to offer information services via CC systems, and to realise the increasing importance of "grey information" and personal contacts in accessing information.