DIRE: an approach to improving informal scientific communication

The crisis due to the phenomenal growth in the scientific literature stil persists and shows no signs of abating. This paper discusses a prototype system, DIRE, that seeks to attak this problem by interconncecting interested parties into an informal distributed information storage and retrieval system. After initially expressing areas of interest, users of this system will be able to participate rather passively while DIRE constantly monitor its holdings for items of interest. User notification will be automatically generated when interesting items appear in the information system. This approach offers of an economical, unobstrusive means for increasing awareness of new intellectual developments both within and across scientific research communities