Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science Proceedings of an International Symposium (2004) / Chapter Skim
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21 International Transfer of Information in the Physical Sciences
21 International Transfer of Information in the Physical Sciences
Pages 85-90
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From page 85... ...
Electronic media have made such access steadily easier and cheaper, and consequently have made it possible for science to progress faster and at a higher level of scholarship.1 We are in a period of adaptation and learning; this discussion starts with the perspective that we are trying to find effective ways to maintain procedures and values we know and trust while making optimal use of the powerful tools of electronic media and open access. The following discussion will describe the kinds of information that physical scientists share, how they go about sharing that information, how the modes of sharing are changing, what the larger context is in which this sharing takes place, and then to the central point of this discussion, what challenges and problems face the scientific community and the infrastructure that supports it.
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From page 86... ...
One might go so far as to say that unevaluated data deposited in an indiscriminate repository should be given no legal protection at all, until they have been scrutinized critically. Traditional journal publication and the almost-as-traditional preprint circulation have been the most important archival modes of communication.
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From page 87... ...
The number of scientific journals published in the United States increased steadily and exponentially from about 1840 until the late 1990s, when the growth rate slowed a bit.6 During the rapid expansion of basic scientific research during the 1960s and 1970s, many new, specialized journals appeared. Consequently, university libraries, federal laboratories, and industrial research centers subscribed to many more journals than they had prior to 1960.
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From page 88... ...
Journals first began to use electronic methods in doing their composition; the next step was introducing modes of accessing individual papers.7 Journals then moved toward greater and greater use of electronic tools, starting with search procedures based on keywords; next, posting images of abstracts and then full manuscripts; putting up full texts in searchable form; and then to making available supplementary material that did not appear in the paper version of articles. The next stage, something envisioned in the mid-twentieth century but only realized in the late 1990s, was the posting of full archives of all issues of journals.
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From page 89... ...
Ginsparg proposes a procedure of systematic review for articles deemed worthy of particular scrutiny sometime after they have been put up on an electronic archive. His procedure would displace formal reviewing to a review stage after the normal audience had seen publications but before they went through any formal review.
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From page 90... ...
Their not-for-profit roles determine priorities that are quite different from those of commercial publishers. Consequently, a professional society is likely to regard electronic posting differently than a commercial publisher, and is likely to have a different kind of motivation toward actions that might threaten traditional revenue sources.
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