= 30 = 
This is due for the greatest part to the unique software and 
services made available associated with the know-how developed in 14 
years at the service of customers and to the wealth of information 
contained in the ESA-IRS database currently containing more than 23 
Million bibliographic references. 
ESA-IRS is also consultant to international bodies at continental 
level (e.g. the PADIS project of the Economic Commission for Africa 
in Addis Ababa). 
II ESA-IRS Services 
They fall into four main categories: online, offline, support, help 
services. 
A. Online Services. 
They are based on some 40 bibliographical databases or files 
yielding references to reports, theses, preprints or published 
articles. An example of reference is given at Fig. 1 while table 
1 lists the major sectors covered together with relevant databas 
names. Clearly, due to the wide range of some databases, some 
names appear under multiple headings. Experience indeed confirms 
that, depending on the topic being studied one generally needs to 
search two to three databases as a minimum in order to adequately 
cover a search query. 
À special mention must be made of factual databanks available to 
ESA-IRS. Apart from two databanks on electronic components 
(ELECOMPS- general components; SPACECOMPS - components flown on 
ESA satellites) and an economic one, PRICEDATA, containing time 
séries of market values for raw materials and currencies on the 
màjor international stock markets, ESA-IRS also makes available a 
catalogue of imagery acquired under the EARTHNET programme of the 
Agency. This databank - LEDA - contains references to imagery 
remotely sensed by the LANDSAT series of satellites and acquired 
at the FUCINO and KIRUNA stations together with other data from 
satellites such as SEASAT-A, NIMBUS-G, HCMM, etc. 
Whatever the kind of information retrieved at the terminal, 
ESA-IRS offers the possibility to order the original documents 
online directly from the terminal. The name of this service is 
PRIMORDIAL. It is available for all bibliographic databases - in 
which case, as a result, the customer will receive directly from 
an appropriate document supplier the original document in hard 
Copy or microfiche form according to his request (and the bill 
also!). It is also available for the LEDA databank - in which 
case the original document may be quick look image(s) or the 
relevant Computer Compatible Tape(s) containing the actual 
imagery geometrically and radiometrically preprocessed. 
Although the material available in the ESA-IRS databases is 
Proca 2