Search

Introduction Cemagref is a French public research institute that targets results directly useable in land and water management. Cemagref aims at producing new knowledge and technical innovation for managers, decision-makers, and companies by responding to specific questions raised by society concerning resource management, land use, and development. In Grenoble, France, three teams devote most of their research to mountainous regions. Ten documentation departments manage scientific and technical information. The documentary organisation is based on the body's geographical distribution; each site has a documentation centre. Twenty-two staff handle documents, with the primary aim of meeting the needs of the establishment's researchers in terms of information. The documentary network is coordinated by the Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Department, at General Management level (Jannes-Ober, 2005).The STI Department acts as the driving force in encouraging scientific research-related exchanges and supporting our strategy within the institution as well as with outside partners. To achieve such goals, the STI Department offers specific tools and methods allowing users to access useful information, assist the production and dissemination of relevant knowledge and expertise, develop scientific production, and further the activities of external and internal specialist networks. This work was carried out at Cemagref Grenoble documentation centre, together with the Mountain Ecosystems research team, i.e. 27 researchers and technical engineers and six PhD students. The research unit focused on the dynamics of mountain ecosystems. It aimed at providing management tools for such environments. Its research contributed to improving what is known about the ecosystem (the functioning of plant communities, process modelling, the validation of ecological concepts, and theories on mountain systems as well as spatial modelling) and to developing operational methods and tools for ecological management and the engineering of mountain ecosystems. The research within the Mountain Ecosystems team is multidisciplinary, experimental, and technical. This is one of Cemagref's assets. Scientists contribute to enhancing the knowledge that must be operational for ecological management and the engineering of mountain ecosystems. They also contribute to the scientific knowledge of mountain ecosystems. Scientific knowledge is complex. Information professionals' first task is to meet the needs of individual researchers. However, can they leave the user alone to decide on their needs? Information professionals have to support scientific activity (Turner, 1996). This is a real challenge for information professionals who have to cope with the information researchers require. Information must be multidisciplinary, scientific, and technical. The Cemagref documentation centre's main objective is to help researchers save time when seeking scientific and technical data. Information professionals offer their expertise to solve information and communication issues. According to W.A. Turner (1996), before taking action there may be cooperation; yet, before deciding to collaborate, managing on-going social exchanges successfully is required. He argues that databases should be considered as tools for this type of management. The author draws the conclusion that modern information professionals should work in this direction. At Cemagref, strategic plans from 1999 to date (Cemagref, 1999, 2004) have expressed the need to strengthen the links between researchers and information professionals. In the first plan, information professionals were asked to assist researchers with their work. In the current strategic plan, they act as actual support of scientific and technical management. Over the last five years, different systems to help researchers have been explored at our centre: from a "traditional database" tailored to meet Cemagref's needs to a new open source tool from Web 2. …