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Hypermedia Online Publishing: the Transformation of the Scholarly Journal

4.3.3 Trends in access

From its origins largely within the world of academic and research institutions in the United States, the Internet is spreading rapidly.

One dimension of this spread is across countries, so that there are very few countries that do not have at least one Internet point of presence. Indeed, access to the Internet is increasingly being viewed as a very desirable part of any development activities.

The other dimension of this spread is within countries and is seen to the greatest extent within the United States (not surprisingly) with Australia coming a close second on many measures. Characteristic of this spread are the following indicators:

increase in businesses connecting their internal networks to the Internet
increase in businesses providing a corporate Internet presence
increasing appearance of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs= Web addresses) on advertising material, sides of buses, T-shirts, etc.
increase in home access to the Internet through commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
increase in governments making information available on-line
increase in ecommerce activities of all kinds

There are no signs that these trends are abating, and it seems reasonable to assume that they will at least continue at the same level and probably intensify. Within the domain of professionals whose work has a strong information component, it is reasonable to assume that the majority have access to networked information through their work, with many acquiring additional access at home.

Last modified: Monday, 11-Dec-2017 14:40:47 AEDT