The collection and study of relevant literature continued throughout the project period, since the area is new and developing very rapidly.

Our literature search started in the DBC database DanBib and Artikelbasen, as well as in First Search and Uncover. In this connection we visited Danmarks Biblioteksskoles Bibliotek (the central library in Denmark for literature on library activities, documentation and information), and benefited from its large, up-to-date collection of magazines.

However although it appeared very interesting initially, much of the literature we ordered at the start of the project turned out to contain more thoughts and theoretical considerations than actual knowledge based on experience of practical work in the field. Our general impression was that although a great number of people seemed to have their own views on various aspects of the net and all the information out there, there were few with concrete knowledge that we could use in our project. So for the project participants, working with Internet publications was largely a process of "learning by doing". New territory had to be explored!

However, the general picture changed during the project period. The registration of Internet publications is now being tested in many different countries, including Denmark's neighbours. We discovered this during the project period when visiting many sites on the net to collect information about topics reflected by various aspects of the Indoreg project.

Here are some examples (not a comprehensive list) of the literature we used, and of sites on the WWW that we visited.

The American OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) and the British UKOLN (The UK Office for Library and Information Networking) quickly proved extremely interesting with regard to the Internet.

The OCLC has been using its NetFirst database and Intercat project for the registration of Internet publications for some time, and is centrally placed in the task of developing the Dublin Core metadata element set and distributing it internationally, as well as the problem of the volatile URLs and their future replacements, PURLs.

The Dublin Core metadata form (and information about what metadata is) can be found at http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core.

For PURL/URL please refer to http://purl.oclc.org/.

The documents published in connection with the OCLC's Intercat project were among the most practical and useful in terms of registration that we encountered during the project. The following URL gives good access to the complex of publications: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/man/catproj/catcall.htm.

One of the central publications in this connection is: Cataloging Internet resources : a manual and practical guide / Nancy B. Olson, editor. OCLC, 1995 (can be found on the net at the address: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/man/9256cat/toc.htm).

In connection with the practical task of cataloguing, it is worth mentioning that there is also plenty of very interesting reading material at the Library of Congress, Network Development and MARC Standards Office's homepage: http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marc.html. Naturally, this deals largely with MARC formating and format development allowing for the demands a publishing medium like the Internet can make on bibliographic registration format.

UKOLN is also centrally placed in terms of participation in and monitoring of international developments in making Internet publications more accessible. The main entry on UKOLN's homepage for metadata: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/ also gives access to publications about the metadata/Internet-related projects ROADS (Resource Organisation And Discovery in Subject-based Services), DESIRE (Development of a European Service for Information on Research and Education) and BIBLINK (Linking Publishers and National Bibliographic Services), the aim of which is to develop a bibliographic exchange system between publishers and national bibliographic institutions. The 2 last projects are under the auspices of the EU, and include participants from a number of European countries.

In Scandinavia metadata is also under consideration; and we have monitored the Nordic metadata project, whose project description can be seen at: http://linnea.helsinki.fi/meta/projplan.html. The net-borne invitation to the metadata conference in Lund 11.10.1997, attended by several Indoreg project members, also gives access to important literature about metadata, particularly concerning the Dublin Core element set: (http://www.ub2.lu.se/NNC/workshop/meta.html).

In Sweden the Royal Library has been working on the Kulturarw3 project, the goal of which is to register Swedish periodicals on the net. Their homepage (http://kulturarw3.kb.se/) explains how the task has been tackled.

In Norway, which has a very wide-ranging legal deposit law for electronic publications, there has also been a good deal of discussion concerning the collection, storage and registration of electronic publications. This is described in the homepage associated with the legal deposit department at the National Library in Rana: http://www.nbr.no/nbrana/plikt/plikt.html.

With regard to the project's efforts to identify document types and formulate national bibliographic inclusion criteria, we found very little experience to draw on. However, there is one inspiring article about "book selection" of Internet publications at an American university library that is worth mentioning: The Internet and collection development : mainstreaming selection of Internet resources / by Samuel Demas, Peter McDonald, and Gregory Lawrence. In: Library resources and technical services. Vol. 39, no. 3 (1995). (A summary is available at the address: http://bubl.ac.uk/journals/lis/kn/lrats/v39n0395.htm).

With regard to the formulation of criteria for national bibliographic inclusion of Internet publications in particular, our source of inspiration was the current inclusion criteria for the various parts of the Danish national bibliography, viz.: Optagelseskriterier for Dansk bogfortegnelse og Dansk periodicafortegnelse. 4. udgave. DBC, 1995. (4th edition) (Available on the net at the address: http://www.dbc.dk/generelt/natkrit.html).