Introduction

The need for organizations and industries to increase the efficiency of using document information has lead to the development and adoption of standards for document architectures. The use of networked computers to author, exchange, manipulate, store, retrieve, present, use, and re‐use information has simultaneously created the possibility and the need for adopting standards for interchanging digital document information. Structured document information systems require the attention of producers and users of information today because growing document repositories are recognized as valuable information assets. Implementing standards‐conforming, structured information systems, increases the value of these document repositories, but doing so requires serious rethinking of the ways document information is produced, stored, and distributed. This Special Issue of JASIS addresses the standards of structured information and document architectures, the issues surrounding the implementation of these standards for organizations and persons working towards the goal of using document information more efficiently, and explores the future of structured document information systems. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.