THE ROLE OF DATA CENTERS IN THE ERA OF ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING - HOW CDS WEAVES LINKS TOWARDS ASTRONOMICAL DATABASES AND ARCHIVES

The astronomy data centres, and in particular the Centre de Donnees as tronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), have been building electronic informa tion services for many years. References of publications, observationa l data related to objects, data tables, nomenclature, have been homoge nized and organized into information retrieval systems. This undertaki ng implied an effort of collaboration between data centres, data provi ders, agencies, journal editors, etc. Evolution in recent years has br ought the data centres closer from the publishing process. General sta ndards for electronic tables, tabular data, and catalogues have been p roposed and implemented. With the emergence of fully electronic public ation, new digital library services are being organized, and pave the way to innovative new services, linking publications to information fr om other sources, and making use of new methods for textual informatio n retrieval. The data centres expect to play a key role in these new d evelopments, taking advantage of their expertise in the development of value-added services, and of their longterm involvement towards a ful ly linked astronomy information system.