Stella Keenan, NFAIS Executive Director from 1968 to 1974, once commented on the NFAIS name. "The 'Federation,'" she said, "sounds like a galactic mass born out of Star Wars, although in reality it was born out of Sputnik . . ."

The year was 1957. The Soviet Union had just launched the world's first spacecraft. Suddenly, everyone west of the USSR was focused on international competitiveness in science and technology. It was generally acknowledged that information would be the key . . . high-quality, reliable sci-tech information.

As the United States mobilized to create a new information infrastructure to promote scientific innovation, G. Miles Conrad, Director of Biological Abstracts--now BIOSIS--called an urgent meeting of leading not-for-profit and government scientific abstracting and indexing services.

Conrad implored the assembled group to join forces, cooperate, and interact, so that together we could make rapid progress in achieving national priorities while at the same time promoting the international advancement of science. As a result, the Federation was formed. From the ensuing cooperative efforts of Federation members the world's first computer-assisted publishing efforts were innovated, the world's first electronic databases were developed, and the world's first online services were deployed. The Information Age was born.

Today--nearly 40 years after the birth of NFAIS--social, economic, and political forces are once again driving change in the scholarly publishing world. Once again, the newspapers are full of talk about the need for a national information infrastructure, this time to be built around the "new" electronic media that NFAIS members helped invent

In the last year alone, the once esoteric terms "online" and "Internet" have risen to the status of household words. The Internet--which is growing increasingly synonymous with "online"-- promises a global information highway for the sale and distribution of information and other goods and services. But it also opens the door to new competitors, including information pirates. And it challenges existing institutions--publishers, libraries, and other information providers--to reinvent themselves and their products and services for the new age. There has never been a more important time for the Federation to exist. There has never been a more urgent need for information publishers, producers, and providers to collaborate. The Federation provides the context.

Federation Activities

The Federation dedicates itself to the enhancement and advancement of the scholarly publishing community by:

• facilitating the exchange of information among NFAIS members
• presenting the collective opinion of NFAIS members to the public
• promoting NFAIS members and the role they play in the information community
• sponsoring timely and topical conferences, seminars, and courses
• publishing newsletters, books, report series, and codes of practice for new technologies
• encouraging cooperation among the players in the information community