VPIEJ-L Discussion Archives
April 1992
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Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 09:16:19 -0500
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Chuck Bacon <crtb@helix.nih.gov>
Subject: Re: Review Guidelines
The Usenet model of publication has been enormously popular over the
last few years, and deserves attention. Attention should be paid to
the various mechanisms which have worked well. Mailing lists for
Bitnet and the Internet, because e-mail works; and uucp- and NNTP-based
newsgroups for those sites which can afford them. Editorial policy,
ranging from an absence of editorial supervision (unmoderated
newsgroups) to newsgroups whose entire content is a single moderator's
output. Total flow of Usenet news runs to several million bytes per
day, from well over a thousand newsgroups. Thousands of host sites
provide news feeds, mostly for free. And I have no idea how many
mailing lists exist.
Usenet newsgroups cannot charge a subscription fee, but mailing lists
can. This will be the deciding factor in some cases. But subscription
may be viewed with some suspicion, since there is very little cost to
electronic publication. Editors' salaries would normally be borne by
the sponsoring academic institution, and authors would presumably be
happy simply to avoid page charges. Reviewers would have to be
unpaid, except perhaps by the most prestigious E-journals. I suppose
an electronic Scientific American would require a paid subscription,
although even that might be avoided through a judicious advertising
policy.
VPIEJ-L is itself a model of an electronic journal. It is open, but
that's an editorial policy and not a technical restriction. The fact
that it is limited to simple text (is EBCDIC a form of "ASCII?") is
simply an accommodation to today's limits. Perhaps a variant mailing
list (E-journal) could be started, in a full multi-media format. I
for one would certainly try to get up the software to experience this
virtuous reality!
Chuck Bacon - crtb@helix.nih.gov
ABHOR SECRECY - PROTECT PRIVACY
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 12:09:45 CDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: TZILLNER@WILS.WISC.EDU
Subject: Preservation conference
This is a little peripheral to the purpose of this forum, although I
think that information about preservation of electronic serials is a
topic of interest.--TZ
CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT: "Electronic Preservation:
Preservation of Electronic Formats and
Electronic Formats for Preservation"
presented by The Wisconsin Preservation
Program
(A Program of the Council for Wisconsin
Libraries)
June 3-4, 1992
Madison, Wisconsin
The following sessions will be offered beginning at 1 pm June 3rd and
continuing to 12 noon June 4th.
"The Role of Digital Technology in the Preservation of Research
Library Materials," Anne Kenney, Asst. Director for Preservation,
Cornell University.
"The Marquette Electronic Archives Project," Michael Pate, Asst.
Director for Public Services, Marquette University.
"The National Archives and Electronic Records for Preservation,"
Fynette Eaton, National Archives, Center for Electronic Records.
"Research Testing of Electronic Formats at the Library of Congress,"
Basil Manns, Imaging Engineer at the Library of Congress.
"CD Life Expectancy; The Disk That Will Not Die," Mark Arps,
Marketing Manager for 3M, CD-ROM Optical Recording Division.
"University Microfilms, Inc.," Don Willis, Director of Advanced
Technology.
Conference fee is $50 through May 15th and $75 thereafter. For
registration materials or further information contact Kathy Schneider
at 608/263-4962 or electronically at schneid@macc.wisc.edu (Internet)
or scheid@wiscmacc (Bitnet).
(COWL is a not-for-profit corporation. I have posted this to
several lists--I apologize if you have received multiple copies.)
Tom Zillner Telephone: 608/262-0047 (Voice)
New Technologies Coordinator 608/263-3684 (FAX)
Wisconsin Interlibrary Services ---------------------------------
464 Memorial Library Internet: tzillner@macc.wisc.edu
728 State Street Bitnet: tzillner@wiscmacc
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 14:49:42 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Bill Kownacki <kownacki@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: SGML
Just to add to John Unsworth's comments on SGML, it appears that the
Association of American Publishers, in conjunction with OCLC, has also
standardized on an application of SGML which I expect they will increasingly
use in their publishing activities. They have published their own
_Standard for Electronic Manuscript Preparation and Markup_ (approved as
ANSI/NISO Z39.59-1988) plus "four accompanying guides with specialized
instructions for authors, for markup of mathematical formulas, and for
tabular material, as well as a reference manual." The quote is from
material distributed by
EPSIG (Electronic Publishing Special
Interest Group)
c/o OCLC
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH 43017-0702
(614) 764-6096
Please write or call them for info. on this standard and the guidebooks.
It seems to me that one of the chief advantages of SGML is that the text
does remain in ASCII format, although it can be easily formatted at the
point of printing or display, or just as easily sent into a database.
Many of the current projects which work from bit-mapped images of the
printed page or transmit the text in some encoded binary format may
only serve to keep the present publishing structure intact and make
electronic publishing only a profitable added-on business. Who benefits
when text is encoded and impossible to extract? Who loses? Who benefits
from inexpensive, abundant flow of information to everyone who wants it
and who loses? Perhaps with an open discussion of these issues, we
may be able to arrive at a model for a new scholarly publishing system
where libraries will not be increasing priced out of the market.
______________________________________________________________________
| ___ ___________ |
| \ \ / ___ ___ / Bill Kownacki, Room 302 Newman Library |
| \ \/ / / / Science Department, Virginia Tech Libraries |
| \ / / / P.O. Box 90001, Blacksburg Virginia 24062-9001 |
| \/ /_/ Phone: 703-231-9237 E-Mail: kownacki@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu |
|______________________________________________________________________|
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 16:42:50 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Editors of PMC <pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: SGML
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 1 Apr 1992 14:49:42 EST from <kownacki@vtvm1>
I second Bill's request for a discussion of the interests served by and
vested in the various formats for archiving/formatting e-text. Not that
the DoD is by any means an unproblematic party to have on one's side (though
it bears remembering that they're responsible for the existence of the
networks we use to have this discussion--we may already be inextricably
enmeshed in that web...). I'd like to trot out my hobby horse here, while
we're at it: universities and university libraries should take the opportunity
that is still available (until the nets are privatized) to establish a
scholarly-publishing cooperative, one which would cut out the middle-man
and make producers and consumers of academic text more self-sustaining.
WAIS is a model for this, in some ways (free access to data across the
nets); I can also imagine fee structures based on contributions to and
use of the cooperative's text pile, or a Marxist from-each-according-to-
his-abilities, to-each-according-to-his-needs model (maybe that's WAIS,
come to think of it). At any rate, the two questions (who will publish
and how) seem related, to me.
John Unsworth
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 17:58:59 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: MICHAEL STRANGELOVE <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA>
Subject: Publishing Cooperative
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 1 Apr 1992 16:42:50 EST from <pmc@ncsuvm>
Following on John Unsworth's suggestion of the establishment of a
scholarly publishing cooperative between universities and university
libraries, I wonder if it those of us who are publishers of network
distributed academic serials should not start the ball rolling by
forming an international consortium that will serve to facilitate
the visability and legitimation of electronic publication in academia.
We have established some exciting and viable models that need full
legitimation - this will undoubtably be a slow process but would be
facilitated by an identifiable lobby group. Perhaps support of such a
consortium could be found in EDUCOM, CNI, ARL and other bodies.
We need to ask, What will it take to get scholars willingly publishing
in etext (as opposed to hardcopy) and then take steps to supply the
correct environment.
Michael Strangelove
Department of Religious Studies
University of Ottawa
BITNET: 441495@Uottawa
Internet: 441495@Acadvm1.Uottawa.CA
S-Mail: 177 Waller, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5 CANADA
Voice: (613) 237-2052
FAX: (613) 564-6641
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 18:35:11 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Guedon Jean-Claude <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: Publishing Cooperative
In-Reply-To: <9204012314.AA29749@condor.CC.UMontreal.CA>; from "MICHAEL
STRANGELOVE" at Apr 1, 92 5:58 pm
>
> Following on John Unsworth's suggestion of the establishment of a
> scholarly publishing cooperative between universities and university
> libraries, I wonder if it those of us who are publishers of network
> distributed academic serials should not start the ball rolling by
> forming an international consortium that will serve to facilitate
> the visability and legitimation of electronic publication in academia.
>
> We have established some exciting and viable models that need full
> legitimation - this will undoubtably be a slow process but would be
> facilitated by an identifiable lobby group. Perhaps support of such a
> consortium could be found in EDUCOM, CNI, ARL and other bodies.
>
> We need to ask, What will it take to get scholars willingly publishing
> in etext (as opposed to hardcopy) and then take steps to supply the
> correct environment.
>
>
> Michael Strangelove
> Department of Religious Studies
> University of Ottawa
>
> BITNET: 441495@Uottawa
> Internet: 441495@Acadvm1.Uottawa.CA
> S-Mail: 177 Waller, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5 CANADA
> Voice: (613) 237-2052
> FAX: (613) 564-6641
>
I am in such a complete agreement with Michael's suggestion
that I feel he has taken words out of my own keyboard.
This said, one caveat: if it is international, it will
include languages other than English and strict ascii
is no longer sufficient to communicate. We, at Surfaces, attempt
to circumvent this problem by encoding our texts in a way that
makes them compatible with the networks (for example binhex in the
Macintosh world), but this requires a decoder for the readers
and this complicates matters quite a bit. Besides, all this is
nothing more than temporary tinkering (bricolage would say
Levy-Strauss, but that may sound a bit arrogant for our purpose here).
What we need is a generalized discussion on formats able to accomodate
all these accents dear to the French, Spanish and Italian speakers
(for example), as well as the umlauts and special diacriticals
used in a variety of European languages. Also, graphic formats
will have to be agreed upon. We use the Compuserve format called
GIF (now taken up by GEnie as well), but again, this may be
a form of temporary tinkering. More universal formats
such as ODA or SGML are coming up, but with uncertain futures
and PostScript seems to be developing a standard of its own
code-named Carrousel, but again we must wait and see.
Meanwhile, organizing ourselves on this topic and watching
what is coming along is crucial. let us do What Michael suggests
so rightly.
Cheers,
Jean-Claude Guedon (with an acute on the "e")
Litterature comparee (2 more acutes missing)
Universite de Montreal (2 more acutes missing)
Guedon@ere.umontreal.ca
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 20:52:58 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: mgeller@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Publishing cooperatives and more
I'm intrigued and delighted by John Unsworth's and Michael
Strangelove's ideas about a scholarly publishing cooperative. Michael
asks what we have to do to get scholars to publish "in etext". I
think we have to get them to use it, and then they'll willingly
publish in the electronic medium. University libraries need to access
and promote the availability of electronic formats and incorporate
these materials into our standard library research procedures. At
MIT, and I'm sure at other libraries, we are grappling with how to
archive ejournals/ in a way that will make them most accessible and
most useful to our patrons. This seems very much like we are all
reinventing the wheel, but we are all a bit nervous about lack of
access or delayed access to files scattered around the net.
The solution, in my mind, seems to be a collective archive. Such an
archive would be located in one place. Etexts could be contributed in
or manipulated to be in one standardized format. And there would be a
built in confidence of continuity. Individual libraries wouldn't have
to recreate the work of other libraries and could spend more energy on
promoting the use of this collective archive instead of creating
individual ones.
Publishing cooperatives sound like a wonderful prospective.
Collective archives sound like a great place to start.
Marilyn Geller
Serials Cataloguer Editor,
MIT Libraries Citations for Serial Literature
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 20:52:02 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: publishing cooperative
======================================================================== 54
Bill Kownacki said:
>electronic publishing only a profitable added-on business. Who benefits
>when text is encoded and impossible to extract? Who loses? Who benefits
>from inexpensive, abundant flow of information to everyone who wants it
>and who loses? Perhaps with an open discussion of these issues, we
>may be able to arrive at a model for a new scholarly publishing system
>where libraries will not be increasing priced out of the market.
Sort of off the subject but related I say:
It would be disappointing to see electronic journals costs much money. At
this time we can simply intercept the data on the way to the press and
massage it into our e-journal format(s). But then the provider has to have
a staff person to do whatever it takes to create the e-journal, and has to
archive the data and the costs start adding up. So who absorbs these costs?
I like how things work in the unix world with the Free Software Foundation.
Why can't there be a Free Information Foundation? Would libraries participate
in such an organization?
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 20:55:29 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: OCLC and publishing cooperative
I understood there was some interest on the part of OCLC in signing up
individual publishers to distribute their journals. How does this fit
into the publishing cooperative that Michael Strangelove and others have
mentioned? Are we on the verge of being too late to form such an
organization?
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 21:48:07 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: MICHAEL STRANGELOVE <441495@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA>
Subject: Multilanguage Networking
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed,
1 Apr 1992 18:35:11 EST from <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
Jean-Claude Guedon (or at least the low ascii version of him) as pointed
out the language barrier that will keep the Net from being truely
international for sometime to come.
Is anyone able to comment (using small words and short sentences) on
the UNICODE plans and its impact on the Net? Will it lead to true
multilanguage communication on the Net by the end of this decade or is
this another generation's reality?
Michael Strangelove
Department of Religious Studies
University of Ottawa
BITNET: 441495@Uottawa
Internet: 441495@Acadvm1.Uottawa.CA
S-Mail: 177 Waller, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5 CANADA
Voice: (613) 237-2052
FAX: (613) 564-6641
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 22:15:40 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Editors of PMC <pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: publishing cooperative
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 1 Apr 1992 20:52:02 EST from <jpowell@vtvm1>
The answer to James Powell's pertinent question about who absorbs the
costs of producing e-journals at the moment is:
the people who produce them
the institutions which host them
whatever grant funding one can scrape together
Editors have a professional interest in what they do, and in this regard
they are in a position no different than editors of print journals (most
of whom, in the humanities at least, do their work gratis, as "service
to the profession"). Institutions also often underwrite print journals
(again, at least in the humanities). What we're asking for when we talk
about an information cooperative or consortium, is an increased institutional
commitment to fostering new e-journals, converting print journals to e-text,
and administering participation in the consortium. The logical argument in
favor of universities doing this is that, at the bottom line, the cost of
this course of action will be lower than the cost of buying back the research
which they collectively produce from for-profit publishers. It may not be
free, but if it is a non-profit enterprise, it must be cheaper. Moreover,
when for-profit publishers get seriously involved in electronic publishing,
the cost (due to "value added" theories of pricing) is likely to be more
rather than less than the cost of buying journals from those same publishers
in print form. If one produces the goods one consumes, it doesn't make
sense to send them off to someone else to be packaged and then buy them
back at a markup that exceeds the cost of the packaging.
Michael's suggestion that the CNI, ARL, etc. should take an active role
in fostering a lobby for this is logical, and in fact the ARL has so far
taken a very active role (hi Ann) in supporting e-journals. I'm not sure
how much money these organizations can put towards such an effort, but so
far I do think the support of the ARL has paid off well. Marilyn Geller's
idea that we need centralized archives makes sense, too. I've just recently
argued the contrary with my co-editor, Eyal Amiran, because things like
WAIS (or Archie) make it possible to locate information in distributed
archives (granted, the user-interface for these tools could be improved);
but perhaps on-going distribution and library archiving are two separate
things: if a network server disappears, or if an e-journals stops publishing,
we do still want researchers to be able to find the material published in
that journal ten, twenty, fifty years from now. And perhaps a centralized
archive could also serve as the collection/circulation center for our
hypothetical information consortium. But the real problem here is that
there's not a great deal of time to get all this in place; perhaps what
we need first of all is for established lobby groups like the ARL and
some of the others Michael mentions to approach university administrators
on a systematic basis and plead the case for a commitment of funds to
this endeavor. I think there are something like 160 institutions which
belong to the ARL; $10,000 from each institution would add up to
a little more than $1.5 million. I would think that would be enough
to get a fairly sizable ball rolling. What percentage of library
serials budgets, annually, would $10,000 be, for the average ARL
library? The price of a few science journals, I wager.
John Unsworth
Co-editor, _Postmodern Culture_
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 21:52:25 CST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Robin Cover <robin@utafll.uta.edu>
Subject: UNICODE and "multi-lingual communication"
Trying to use "small words and short sentences" --
I personally doubt whether UNICODE or any other multi-byte character
encoding standard should influence the current plans for archiving
and distribution of electronic journals. Several reasons:
(1) It's not assured yet whether the battle for a single standard for
multi-byte character representation will be won soon. The ISO 10646 group
and UNICODE are attempting to cooperate, but the final results are not
clear.
*Definition: for those who don't know much about UNICODE and ISO 10646
work. ASCII is a fixed-width "single" byte character encoding in that
each "byte" is 8-bits. The multi-byte character encoding standards
are trying to allow more characters, since one byte allows only 128
unique codes when 7 bits are used (as on current mail networks), and
only 256 characters when all 8 bits of the one byte are used. A
two-byte wide "character" encoding would allow for about 65,000 unique
codes (2 raised to the 16th power rather than 2 to the 8th power).
UNICODE is a commercial consortium of principally US companies, and
it is publishing a standard for fixed-width characters; the two bytes
or 16 bits are enough for the world's primary alphabetic writing
systems, and for some other more complex writing systems. ISO 10646
is a partially competitive effort (primarily by the Europeans) that uses a
variable-width multi-byte approach, which will allow for more than
65,000 unique codes -- necessary or not necessary, depending upon your
viewpoint. The goal is to make UNICODE a subset of ISO 10646 so that
there will be compatibility in the common ranges. ISO 10646 has failed
one vote, and it's unclear what will happen between now and the next
vote.
(2) Even if UNICODE and ISO 10646 were merged today, it will be a long
time before we have compliant software on all our machines. Just
consider, for example, that even with the 8-bit "ASCII" standard
(actually, only 7 bits are really "standard"), we still have terrible
incompatibilities across national boundaries. Even UUENCODE will not
work between here and the UK for some common network connections, since
character translations are not perfect. Getting everyone to standardize
on the use of the multi-byte character encoding promises to be hard
enough (since there is room for user-defined codes), and development
of applications software will take a long time before the encoding
is democratized so that it's considered the "lowest common
denominator," which is the problem with even 7-bit ASCII today.
(3) More problematic yet is that UNICODE, while claiming to enable
multi-lingual communication, is insufficient of itself to encode
"language." What it does is to internationalize a character inventory
so that we can see accented characters, and "foreign" characters on a
screen, but it does not encode linguistic knowledge. ASCII has the
same problem: we don't know what "die" means until we know what
language the word is "in." I would argue, therefore, that any
standard format used in a major project (such as Michael and others
propose here) must enable an encoding that allows representation
of fundamental kinds of knowledge about text, like
"what language it is in." UNICODE, ISO10646 or any other character
code standards may be used -- it does not matter which one. What will
matter, in terms of having a true knowledge base rather than just a
few gigabytes of digital "stuff," is whether the texts are given basic
structural and linguistic description. A hugh job lies ahead of
UNICODE or those who will implement UNICODE to determine how the
thousands of new characters will be used in (real) "text" files to
represent multi-lingual TEXT. For now, UNICODE just gives a greater
inventory of displayable characters, and rudimentary algorithms for
controlling the direction of writing. In declining to address the
issue of textual features (they are only partially consistent and
successfulin this claim), they leave a huge gap to be filled, in various
non-standard ways, by applications developers. Maybe not such a coup
after all.
In a word: the discussion about electronic libraries and archive
centers can continue (imho) without reference too the standards for
character encoding.
(I managed to say all that without referring to SGML - amazing!)
Robin Cover
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robin Cover BITNET: zrcc1001@smuvm1 ("one-zero-zero-one")
6634 Sarah Drive Internet: robin@utafll.uta.edu ("uta-ef-el-el")
Dallas, TX 75236 USA Internet: zrcc1001@vm.cis.smu.edu
Tel: (1 214) 296-1783 Internet: robin@ling.uta.edu
FAX: (1 214) 841-3642 Internet: robin@txsil.sil.org
=============================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 20:24:52 -0800
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: bobk@DECIDE.COM
Subject: Re: Publishing cooperatives and more
>I'm intrigued and delighted by John Unsworth's and Michael
>Strangelove's ideas about a scholarly publishing cooperative. Michael
>asks what we have to do to get scholars to publish "in etext". I
>think we have to get them to use it, and then they'll willingly
>publish in the electronic medium. University libraries need to access
>and promote the availability of electronic formats and incorporate
>these materials into our standard library research procedures. At
>MIT, and I'm sure at other libraries, we are grappling with how to
>archive ejournals/ in a way that will make them most accessible and
>most useful to our patrons. This seems very much like we are all
>reinventing the wheel, but we are all a bit nervous about lack of
>access or delayed access to files scattered around the net.
>
>The solution, in my mind, seems to be a collective archive. Such an
>archive would be located in one place. Etexts could be contributed in
>or manipulated to be in one standardized format. And there would be a
>built in confidence of continuity. Individual libraries wouldn't have
>to recreate the work of other libraries and could spend more energy on
>promoting the use of this collective archive instead of creating
>individual ones.
>
>Publishing cooperatives sound like a wonderful prospective.
>Collective archives sound like a great place to start.
>
>Marilyn Geller
>Serials Cataloguer Editor,
>MIT Libraries Citations for Serial Literature
Just an additional thought. There is software being developed by THINKING
Machines called WAIS. This stands for Wide Area Information Server. It is a
mechanism to allowed easy access to materials distributed over the
internet. A collective archive will ALWAYS run out of space in an
environment where scholarship is active. Even the library of Congress does
not have a copy of everything. A distributed solution is much better if you
want a complete collection.
WAIS Software is available from think.com on the internet via anonymous
ftp.
Thanks/Peace/Bob
Electronic Supplement Editor
The Mathematica Journal
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 08:51:02 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stu Weibel <stu@rsch.oclc.org>
Subject: inexpensive, abundant flow of information
The change in the nature of publishing, from object-based, paper
ownership to content-based, electronic access will force us to
understand that information flow, is not inexpensive now, nor will it
be in the future.
One is easily lulled into believing that it is inexpensive because
the marginal cost of using it is low or zero - we visit the library, or
have our graduate students do so for us, or, for the lucky few, call
them and have the information delivered, never once reaching for our
wallets.
Ask a library administrator how inexpensive information is, however,
and a new perspective emerges. Estimates of the cost of per item usage
usually start at $10 and go up. The validity of such figures is
bolstered by the willingness of many administrators to shift from
buying the item to paying that much or more for access to an article via
interlibrary loan or a document delivery service.
Don't expect free electronic journals - those that are free now are only
so because their real costs are buried in someone's budget, and that
someone generally does not think of themselves as a publisher.
The great unanswered question is not whether electronic publishing will
prevail but how the transition will occur and how moneys which now support
a flow of paper will be redirected to support a flow of electrons. In
both streams, however, someone will pay for editing, for selection, for
cataloging, and for the systems necessary to support access, whether
they are shelves or computer networks. In the long run, digital systems
will probably reduce these costs below what they are for production of paper
journals, and this factor alone will force us into the electronic domain.
The transition is likely to be rocky.
The good news is that information is cheap compared to the consequences
of not having it. Communities such as this list represents must work
to assure the funding necessary to support this flow.
Stuart Weibel
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC Office of Research
stu@rsch.oclc.org
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 08:49:59 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: archives
Here are the contents of the VPIEJ-L archives so far. I hope to add more
items soon. Please feel free to send suggestions to me at
JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU
*******************
* FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS files realtes to E-Journal Publishing
*******************
POSTSCRI FAQ ALL OWN V 76 306 92/03/27 09:04:41
*******************
* Bibliographies - various subjects
*******************
EJ-BIB TXT ALL OWN V 79 83 92/03/27 16:07:12
SGML BIBLIO ALL OWN V 70 3004 92/04/02 08:29:04
* NOTEBOOK archives for the list
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 08:44:52 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Thomas B. Hickey" <tbh@rsch.oclc.org>
Subject: Re: DVI for e-journals
The AAAS/OCLC Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials is stored (and
transmitted) in TeX DVI format, although the SGML is also available to
users. We used DVI for its archival nature, compactness and the fact
that we use TeX for formatting. Selecting and copying from the
displayed image is supported (the result is straight ASCII).
Thom Hickey,
OCLC
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 12:26:09 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stu Weibel <stu@rsch.oclc.org>
Subject: Re: OCLC and publishing cooperative
OCLC has made a strategic corporate committment to participating in the
emergence of electronic publishing, as evidenced by our collaboration
with AAAS on the introduction of the Online Journal of Current Clinical
Trials. We certainly hope and expect this component of our mission to
grow and to play a significant role in the development of this important
trend in scholarly publishing.
The following computations illustrate the scope of the problem of
mounting a large electronic document store. Opinions will differ on
the practicality of such a store, but rapidly decreasing storage costs
clearly mitigates in favor of the feasibility of such a store in the
near future.
The following figures are based on estimates derived from the CORE
project, and estimates of serial sizes based on other OCLC studies.
CORE (Chemistry Online Retrieval Experiment) is a collaborative
electronic library experiment (about which I will post more if there is
interest). These are *rough* estimates, but should provide a good
flavor of the problem:
Page Storage Requirements Estimates, CORE database:
Data Format Storage
SGML marked-up text 8.5 Kbytes
SGML marked-up text and extracted graphics 10 Kbytes
Text, graphics, and indexing 25 Kbytes
Page images (G4, 300 dpi Compressed bitmaps) 100 Kbytes
A "Starter" Electronic Journal Database:
7 issues per year * 14 articles per issue = 98 articles/journal-year (1)
10,000 journals * 98 articles/journal-year = 980,000 articles/year
5.5 pages per article * 980,000 articles/year = 5,390,000 pages/year (2)
Notes:
(1) estimates based on 10,000 most commonly held journals in the OCLC Online
Union Catalog
(2) average based on CORE data (ACS journals)
Text, graphics, and indexing for 1 year of 10,000 journals works out
to about 135 Gigabytes. If you want bitmaps of the page images, multiply
by 5 (about 675 Gigabytes). The page images will not be necessary for
de novo electronic publishing, but probably will be necessary for archival
republishing.
In summary:
1 Terabyte is roughly equivalent to 75,000 journal-years of new
electronic publishing and about 15,000 journal-years of archival
republishing.
Stuart Weibel
OCLC
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 13:54:46 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Paul Weiss <pweiss@nlm.nih.gov>
Subject: SGML and UMLS
The following is a response to Hannah King's request for information about
SGML and UMLS It is from Betsy Humphreys, Deputy Assistant Director for
Library Operations, National Library of Medicine. She is the UMLS Project
Officer.
The SGML and the UMLS are addressing different issues and
are not duplicative or competitive.
SGML (Standard Generalized Mark-up Language) is a system for
flexible and unambiguous tagging of the elements of
machine-readable documents, including bibliographic elements
(e.g., title, author's names), textual elements (e.g.,
chapter headings, sentences, paragraphs), and graphic
elements (e.g., special symbols, charts). The goal of
SGML is to enable computer programs to identify correctly
and therefore process appropriately, for whatever purpose,
the elements of documents, irrespective of the system on
which they were created. SGML deals with the format of a
document and is independent of the meaning of its content.
UMLS (Unified Medical Language System) is focused on
reducing the information access problems caused by the
variety of terms used in different machine-readable
databases and by different users to express the same
biomedical concepts. The UMLS project is producing
knowledge sources that can be used by computer programs
to determine the meaning of a user's query, to identify
databases likely to contain information relevant to the
query, and to convert the user's terms into terms
appropriate for searching those databases. The UMLS deals
primarily with content, i.e., the variety of ways the same
concept can be expressed and the distribution of relevant
information among many different information sources.
Paul J. Weiss
Systems Librarian, Office of the Chief, Technical Services Division
National Library of Medicine
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 17:03:46 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Betsy N. Kiser" <bnk@rsch.oclc.org>
Subject: Re: SGML
The address given for EPSIG (to find out more about SGML) was correctly posted
in Bill Kownacki's message but the phone is incorrect. The number given:
614-764-6096 is our fax number. The phone number is 614-764-6195.
Betsy Kiser
Manager, Electronic Publishing Special Interest Group
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 18:00:00 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Gay N. Dannelly" <gnd@ohstmvsa.bitnet>
Subject: Re: OCLC and publishing cooperative
The Committee for Institutional Cooperation's networking arm,
CICNET, will be establishing a cooperative electronic journal archive
based on those titles received by its members. CIC includes the Big
Ten, University of Chicago, Penn State and the University of Illinois
Chicago. CICNET, the regions network access to the internet, will
provide the automation expertise. The standard collection development
decisions made by each library system in those institutions listed will
provide the content. Each title will be cleared by the subscribing
institution with the publisher for inclusion in the database. All
free journals will be available for anonymous ftp, based on current
plans, but journals that are actually purchased will probably differ
depending on their specific requirements. The project has just
been approved by the CICNET Board and is in the planning stages. If
anyone has questions, I would be happy to try to answer them and I
will keep the listserv posted on progress.
Gay N. Dannelly, Collection Development Officer
The Ohio State University Libraries
Chair, CIC Collection Development Officers
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 22:40:00 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: BURNET@ZODIAC.BITNET
Subject: Re: Publishing Cooperative
Michael Strangelove writes: "We need to ask, What will it take to get
scholars willingly publishing in etext (as opposed to hardcopy) and
then take steps to supply the correct environment." I would think that
the answer is fairly simple--recognition by their institutions of
etexts as an equivalent form of publication to print texts for
in the tenure and promotion process.
Kathleen Burnett
Dept. of Library & Information Studies
School of Communication, Information & Library Studies
Rutgers University
burnet@zodiac.rutgers.edu "Yes, that's burnet with just one t.
Some battles aren't worth fighting!"
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1992 09:07:56 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stu Weibel <stu@rsch.oclc.org>
Subject: models for electronic [re]publishing
A question from a reader about my previous note on large document stores
prompts me to clarify my conception of the categories of electronic
publishing and the differences among them.
"De Novo" Electronic Publishing:
Materials published primarily in electronic format from the start; may
exist in print, but only secondarily, and probably printed on-demand
by the user if at all. AAAS/OCLC _Online Journal of Current Clinical
Trials_ is an example. The notion of "page images" is obsolete
in this medium, thus only text/markup/indexing/graphics must be stored.
Republished material based on digital typography files.
Original typography files are used to generate database files to
support appropriate access and retrieval systems; essentially, a
database of previously published text, extracted graphics, and page
images. Page images are important to have as the definitive version
of the data because of the possibility of errors in translating and
representing data from the original typography files. The CORE
project, involving the republication of all 20 American Chemical
Society journals and the associated Chemical Abstracts indexing since
1980, is an example. Requires storage of text/markup/indexing/graphics
(~25 Kbytes/page) and page images (~100 Kbytes/page).
Image archives of previously published materials.
The paper past we must drag along with us. Microform archives are
the model, and simple digitization results in a "digital microform"
model, the sole advantage of which is relative ease of distribution.
A more advanced model is to perform optical character recognition on
these images and use the imperfect files that result to improve
access to these images. Requires storage of text/markup/indexing/graphics
(~25 Kbytes/page) and page images (~100 Kbytes/page). OCLC's ADAPT
Project is a representative example of this approach.
Stuart Weibel
OCLC
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1992 09:06:59 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Joseph Raben <jqrqc@cunyvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: OCLC and publishing cooperative
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 2 Apr 1992 18:00:00 EST from <gnd@ohstmvsa>
Of course your project to collect and disseminate e-journals is
exciting news for those of us who are on the producing end. Can you tell
me what we are expected to do next to support and participate in your
endeavor?
Joseph Raben City University of New York
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1992 09:08:30 -0800
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: bobk@DECIDE.COM
Subject: Re: inexpensive, abundant flow of information
>The change in the nature of publishing, from object-based, paper
>ownership to content-based, electronic access will force us to
>understand that information flow, is not inexpensive now, nor will it
>be in the future.
>
....
>
>Don't expect free electronic journals - those that are free now are only
>so because their real costs are buried in someone's budget, and that
>someone generally does not think of themselves as a publisher.
>
>The great unanswered question is not whether electronic publishing will
>prevail but how the transition will occur and how moneys which now support
>a flow of paper will be redirected to support a flow of electrons. In
>both streams, however, someone will pay for editing, for selection, for
>cataloging, and for the systems necessary to support access, whether
>they are shelves or computer networks. In the long run, digital systems
>will probably reduce these costs below what they are for production of paper
>journals, and this factor alone will force us into the electronic domain.
>The transition is likely to be rocky.
>
...
>
>Stuart Weibel
>Senior Research Scientist
>OCLC Office of Research
>stu@rsch.oclc.org
Fundamentally, all that Stuart writes is accurate, but subject to creative
accounting. In particular, I would like to point to USENET and the Free
Software Foundation. Although, TANSTAFL (there ain't no such thing as a
free lunch) is true in absolute terms, I object to the phrase "their real
costs are buried". People who run businesses, universities, etc. pay for
tools to perform their daily tasks. Computers are among them. So is the
cost of developing new software.
But... There are computer simulation experiments which show that if you
allow organisms to cooperate they are better off, on average, than if they
are totally selfish. USENET works through the cooperation of the people on
the net. My machine is used to its full power for only a small percentage
of the time it is running. Because I find exchanging information to be
personally rewarding, (and becasue the machine will be running anyway), I
am happy to provide others with connections, just as someone has provided
me with one. Some accountant might make up a rule which says that I should
allocate some of the cost of purchase, etc. to "supporting USENET". But
essentially, this view says that my personal value system is irrelevant to
the accounting for cost. I disagree. If I have more food than I can eat and
give it to a homeless person, I don't think I have spent money on that
person. I have avoided wasting a precious asset and helps create a valuable
future. The same is true of computer power.
As to the software needed, the FSF provides a similar accounting model.
Lastly, many people are so enamoured of their work in life that it is their
hobby as well. Once again, the accounting for this time is not at all
clear.
In short, personal values and the mental model of the exhange is important
to the accounting. If we narrowly look at electronic publishing as a
commercial operation, I believe we will drag ourselves into a swamp. We
have a tool which helps us all become more than the sum of our individual
efforts. Lets recognize that in the way we think and talk about our joint
enterprise.
Thanks (Sorry to get on my soap box, this was surely much more pompous than
it needed to be, but I'm too lazy to edit it.)
Peace/Bob
The Mathematica Journal
Electronic Supplement Editor
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1992 13:45:49 PST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: David Robison <drobison@library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Publishing cooperatives and more
For safety's sake, archives should be duplicated in more than one
location. If a natural (or unnatural for that matter) strikes
one site, the data can be restrieved and restored from other
sites.
David F.W. Robison Internet: drobison@library.berkeley.edu
Editor, Current Cites Bitnet: drobison@ucblibra
Library Technology Watch Program Voice: (510)642-7600
UC Berkeley Library Fax: (510)643-7891
Berkeley, CA 94720
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1992 13:56:33 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Comments: Resent-From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1>
Comments: Originally-From: EJOURNAL@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: CICNET/OCLC e-journal collection
From: EJOURNAL@ALBNYVMS.BITNET
Subject: e-journal collection/archive
To: gnd@OHSTMVSA.BITNET, bec@ALBNYVM1.BITNET
Cc: vpiej-l@VTVM1.BITNET, jqrqc@CUNYVM.BITNET
Message-id: <916185A72040FC61@albnyvms.BITNET>
X-Envelope-to: bec@ALBNYVM1.BITNET, jqrqc@CUNYVM.BITNET, gnd@OHSTMVSA.BITNET,
vpiej-l@VTVM1.BITNET
X-VMS-To: IN%"gnd@ohstmvsa"
X-VMS-Cc: IN%"vpiej-l@vtvm1",IN%"jqrqc@cunyvm",TLL41,BEC
Dear Gay Dannelly - The CICNET initiative is exciting; please keep _EJournal_
up to date!
Unless I hear soon that you would rather I didn't, I shall share your
announcement with the Association of Electronic Scholarly Journals.
Can you summarize your planning in regard to the challenge of
monitoring / controlling rights to copy materials available via anonymous ftp?
If you have a document that lays out the rationale for your initiative
(and perhaps addresses policy questions and technical questions, including
"user-friendliness"), _EJournal_ would very much like to consider publishing
it.
Best, Ted Jennings (editor, _EJournal_)
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1992 15:45:44 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: SGML and WP!
If you are interested in seeing WordPerfect support SGML, write to the
address listed at the end of this note. This letter from WordPerfect was
recently posted to the Usenet group COMP.TEXT.SGML.
---------------------------------------------------
[beginning of letter]
Because there are so many ways computers manage data, standard methods
of storing, accessing, and interchanging information is of major
importance to many organizations. Consequently, government, business,
and multinational institutions have helped sponsor, research and
develop standards for compound documents. The issues are complex and
evolving and WordPerfect Corporation is keeping a close watch on these
developments.
WordPerfect welcomes these new standards. Currently under development
are tools which will allow users to manually tag WordPerfect documents
so they can be converted and validated to SGML format. As we get
closer to releasing this product, we will inform you of the
approximate time it will become available. (We are maintaining a
database of companies who are interested in our efforts with regard to
these standards.)
As the Product Manager for this product and Unix-based products at
WordPerfect Corporation, I would like to take this opportunity to
solicit your input and suggestions regarding the SGML product
currently under development. Within most organizations, various
computer platforms are represented, many of which are used for
selective functions. It is my interest to learn on which platforms
you and your organization are most interested in having and using an
SGML product. I also welcome your suggestions and statement of
requirements regarding this product. Please take a moment to send me
a note about your specific platforms of interest.
Thank you for your time and input. This type of feedback will greatly
enhance our ability to bring you a quality product for your target
platform in a timely manner.
Sincerely,
Brent D. McKinley
Product Manager/Unix Products Division
Please send all correspondence to:
WordPerfect Corporation
1555 N. Technology Way
Mail Stop C-213
Orem, UT 84057
[end of letter]
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1992 16:09:32 EST
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: TEX FAQ
The Frequently Asked Questions file for the TeX format are now stored in
the VPIEJ-L archive. To see the archive contents, send a message to
LISTSERV@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU (Internet) or LISTSERV@VTVM1 (BITNET):
INDEX VPIEJ-L
To retrieve a file, send a GET command:
GET
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 19:17:57 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Guedon Jean-Claude <guedon@ere.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: Publishing Cooperative
In-Reply-To: <9204030341.AA08869@condor.CC.UMontreal.CA>; from
"BURNET%ZODIAC.bitnet@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU" at Apr 2, 92 10:40 pm
>
> Michael Strangelove writes: "We need to ask, What will it take to get
> scholars willingly publishing in etext (as opposed to hardcopy) and
> then take steps to supply the correct environment." I would think that
> the answer is fairly simple--recognition by their institutions of
> etexts as an equivalent form of publication to print texts for
> in the tenure and promotion process.
>
> Kathleen Burnett
> Dept. of Library & Information Studies
> School of Communication, Information & Library Studies
> Rutgers University
> burnet@zodiac.rutgers.edu "Yes, that's burnet with just one t.
> Some battles aren't worth fighting!"
>
And I believe that in order to achieve this objective two minimal
conditions (and perhaps more) must be fulfilled:
1. Refereeing must be just as rigorous, if not more than in the
case of printed journals;
2. Acceptance of the materials by standard bibliophies in the
corresponding discipline.
Integrity of the text is another important matter for the author,
but rather than protecting the text (which would prevent quoting
it directly through a cut and paste procedure, for example),
being able to verify the integrity of the text is important.
From the viewpoint of the person quoting, the possibility of using
usual parameters (volume number, number, date of publication,
page numbers) is obviously crucial too.
There may be more, but these points do cover, I believe, the essential.
Jean-Claude Guedon
Litterature comparee
Universite de Montreal
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 08:14:00 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Gail McMillan <gmcmilla@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: Electronic journal access
What about Usenet?
Having experienced it only once, accessing Usenet seemed very difficult from my
campus mainframe (VM at VPI&SU). In theory, I understand that if an e-journal
is 'mounted' on Usenet, then one does not have to subscribe to the e-journal
to have access to issues and articles to read, print, or download to diskette.
Is Usenet more difficult to access than INFO on VM1? Is it someone's responsi-
bility to see that every issue of Psycoloquy, for example, is available? I'm
asking from an archival point of view but also as a librarian who wants
unrestricted and timely access to electronic journals. Is there a point in
time (even a theoretical one) when back issues will not be as readily avail-
able as current issues on Usenet?
Are any libraries advocating access through Usenet rather than more controlled,
online-on-campus access to electronic journals?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.........................Gail McMillan........................
___....____________......Serials Team Leader..................
\ \../ ___ ___/.........University Libraries VPI&SU.......
.\ \/ /../ /.............Blacksburg, VA - (703) 231-9252...
..\ /../ /..............FAX (703) 231-3694................
...\ /../ /.................................................
....\/../__/..........INTERNET.....gmcmilla@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU....
......................BITNET.......gmcmilla@VTVM1.............
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 09:08:06 -0400
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Chuck Bacon <crtb@helix.nih.gov>
Subject: Re: Electronic journal access
Usenet is an anarchic system for remote access to all kinds of rapidly
changing data. It was not designed for archival use. There is almost
nothing in even the deepest and oldest archives on Uunet, for instance,
which is more than ten years old.
Involvement by the management of some of the archiving companies, like
Uunet, would do the library community some good (would somebody go bug
Rick Adams). Electronic archiving should become an important industry;
it is not, at present. The safest and best archives still seem to be
on paper and film.
Chuck Bacon - crtb@helix.nih.gov
ABHOR SECRECY - PROTECT PRIVACY
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 00:20:59 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@princeton.edu>
Subject: Usenet archiving
To: AESJ-L@ALBNYVM1.BITNET (Assoc El Sch Jnls), arachnet@uottawa.BITNET
(Arachnet, EJ list), cnidir-l@unmvm.BITNET (cni list ej),
lstown-l@indycms.BITNET (Bitnet List Owners),
moderators@cs.purdue.edu, pacs-l@uhupvm1.BITNET
(Pacls-l list), serialst@uvmvm.BITNET (Lib Serials list),
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 20:56:36 -0400
From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
> > Chuck Bacon [crtb@HELIX.NIH.GOV] wrote:
> >
> > >>"Usenet is an anarchic system for remote access to all kinds of rapidly
> > >>changing data. It was not designed for archival use. There is almost
> > >>nothing in even the deepest and oldest archives on Uunet, for instance,
> > >>which is more than ten years old.
> > >>
> > >>"Involvement by the management of some of the archiving companies, like
> > >>Uunet, would do the library community some good (would somebody go but
> > >>Rick Adams). Electronic archiving should beocme an important industry;
> > >>it is not, at present . The safest and best archives still seem to be
> > >>on paper and film."
The archivists at UUNET are definitely interested in building a better
archive. Coincidentally, today I suggested that we should attend some
sort of library seminars to learn more about good categorisation. At
some point I am sure I (on behalf of the company or not) will be
attending such a thing to the end of making our archives better.
It is worth pointing out that this isn't as simple a matter as
attempting to implement an existing library categorisation scheme like
the Dewey Decimal System. There is a distinct bias in the sort of
archive service which UUNET provides, and such a system does not
adequately help the management and use of that service.
David Lawrence uunet archives
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 08:42:54 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: GMCMILLA@VTVM1.BITNET
Subject: Re: Usenet archiving
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed,
8 Apr 1992 00:20:59 EDT from <harnad@princeton.edu>
I give up--Are Usenet and Uunet the same thing?
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 15:48:13 +0100
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Michel Eytan LILoL <me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr>
Subject: Re: Usenet archiving
I give up--Are Usenet and Uunet the same thing?
There are *many* nets, their union is the Net. Here is some more:
--------------------begin insert------------------------------------------
From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
Subject: How to Get Information about Networks
Date: 7 Dec 91 02:14:04 GMT
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
Lines: 105
Supersedes: <15998@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
Archive-name: network-info/part1
Original-author: Randall Atkinson <randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu>
Last-change: 30 Nov 91 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
This is a periodic posting on how to get information about the
Internet and how to get information about connecting to the (US)
National Science Foundation's NSFNET through an NSF-affiliated
regional network, or to get commercial Internet service through a
commercial service provider.
I. The NSFNET Network Service Center (NNSC) makes current documentation
on the NSFNET available via a mail server and by anonymous ftp.
Because the contents of the documents are constantly being updated,
this posting only describes how to obtain a current copy rather than
providing the data directly.
Using the mail server: Send mail to the address shown below
(nnsc.nsf.net) and leave the "Subject;" line blank.
The first line of the message body should contain a "Request:"
line, followed by a "Topic:" line, as described below. You do not
need a "Subject:" line, but be sure your mailer puts out a valid
"From:" line that the server can respond to!
To obtain current contact information on the NSFNET and its affiliated
regional networks, send the following mail message to the mail-server:
"info-server@nnsc.nsf.net":
Request: NSFNET
Topic: NNSC
To obtain information on how to connect to the Internet through the
NSFNET or an NSF-affiliated network, send the following mail message
to the mail-server "info-server@nnsc.nsf.net":
Request: NSFNET
Topic: CONNECTING
To obtain information on the documents currently available on the
NSFNET from the info-server, send the following mail message to the
mail server "info-server@nnsc.nsf.net":
Request: NSFNET
Topic: NSFNET-HELP
If you need to contact the people at the NNSC directly, you can either
send mail or call them. It would be a good idea to read the NSFNET
documents first though.
Electronic Mail: <nnsc@nnsc.nsf.net>
Telephone: +1 (617) 873-3400.
II. General Internet information documents are available from the
DDN Network Information Center (which is part of the Internet).
There are several "For Your Information (FYI)" documents
published as part of the Internet "Request For Comments (RFC)"
series of documents. These can be helpful in getting a better
understanding of the Internet and its services and organization.
Experienced, novice, and would-be Internet users can all benefit
from reading these documents.
Included among these are:
RFC-1208 Glossary of Networking Terms
RFC-1207 FYI: Answers to commonly asked "experienced Internet user" questions
RFC-1206 FYI: Answers to commonly asked "new Internet user" questions
RFC-1178 Choosing a Name for your Computer
RFC-1150 FYI on FYI: Introduction to the FYI notes
These RFCs can be obtained by anonymous ftp from nic.ddn.mil or via
email server from nisc.sri.com. To use the RFC email server, send
an email message with the subject line indicating the RFC desired to
mail-server@nisc.sri.com. The NIC service will email the requested
RFC back to you.
For example, to get a copy of RFC-1208 send an email message to
mail-server@nisc.sri.com with the subject line containing:
send rfc/RFC1208.txt
III. The Internet is composed of many networks, not just those
sponsored or affiliated with the US Government. There are also
commercial Internet service providers. Commercial firms that might
not meet requirements for connecting to a US Government-related
network can still connect to the TCP/IP Internet via commercial
service providers not affiliated with the NSFNET or the DDN
Internet:
UUNET Communications Services (UUNET)
alternet-info@uunet.uu.net
Performance Systems, Inc. (PSI)
nisc@nisc.psi.net
You should contact them directly to obtain more information about
their services. Nothing in this posting is intended or should be construed
as an endorsement of any commercial service or commercial firm.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu phone: (317) 494-7825
----------------------end insert------------------------------------
------------------------begin 2nd insert----------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 91 07:56:37 GMT
From: rsw@cs.brown.EDU (Bob Weiner)
Subject: Basic guide on how to send e-mail
[I don't profess that this will work for those who know nothing about
computers, but I do think it is a good, short example of how to explain a
problem like e-mail addressing to a novice computer user.
It does not discuss X.400 based e-mail but should at some future time.]
************************ Bob Weiner Article ***********************
Internet / Usenet Mail Addressing Guide
Bob Weiner
rsw@cs.brown.edu
July 8, 1991
This document discusses how to address mail to or from both Usenet (via UUCP =
UNIX to UNIX Copy Protocol) and the Internet (via SMTP = Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol). Mail through the Internet can reach Usenet, Compuserve, MCI Mail,
and many research and corporate organizations throughout the world.
It assumes you have a mail reader and composer program with its own
documentation, on a computer which can connect to Usenet or the Internet. The
mail address is what you will put or receive on the message line that begins
with the literal string: "To:".
************************
Sending Worldwide E-mail
************************
Here is how you mail to someone else. (Items within <> or in all capitals are
field names for which you must give literal values. Items in [] are optional
fields, which are only included in certain electronic mail addresses. An |
symbol means choose one from the set of alternatives separated by the symbol. A
host is a computer)
>From an Internet Host - To an Internet Host
-------------------------------------------
If a user's organizational address is registered on the Internet, he will
have an address of the form:
@.[.][.]
for example: bert@ladder.princeton.edu
where is a computer name and is a recursive specification
of a logical location, that is, it may contain subdomains as in:
= DOMAIN_IDENTIFIER | SUBDOMAIN_IDENTIFIER.
Organization should always be one of the following:
net for network gateways, e.g. uu.net
edu for educational institutions, e.g. brown.edu
org for non-profit organization, e.g. osf.org
com for commercial firms, e.g. hp.com
gov for government entities, e.g. nasa.gov
mil for war gamers, e.g. army.mil
uucp for non-interneters, Usenet hosts, e.g. novavax.uucp
arpa obsolete, refers to the Arpanet that evolved into
the Internet.
Country is typically a two letter country code for mail outside of the US:
ca Canada
fr France
se Sweden
dk Denmark
ch Switzerland
One example of a self-deprecating Internet mail address might be:
nerdy@wimpy.eecs.berkeley.edu
This addresses a message to the , nerdy, at the , wimpy, in the
EE Computer Science department , eecs, at UC Berkeley, berkeley,
which is obviously an educational institution, edu.
To send, simply place the user's address in the 'To:' field of your mail
message.
>From a Usenet Host - To a Usenet Host
-------------------------------------
Now consider that you are a user whose computer is registered on the UUCP
Usenet, who has only a dialup connection to the network and you want to mail to
another such user. Let's say you actually wanted to communicate withearning a
lot of money, call him smiley@bucks. His machine bucks communicates
directly with a registered machine, cash. So you could send to him with the
following address:
uunet!cash!bucks!smiley
The host 'uunet' is a very important one; it serves as a mail gateway between
Usenet and the Internet, so it knows how to properly address mail for
practically every Internet domain and registered UUCP host in the world. This
is why your mail must go through it, because locally your mail host will never
be as smart as uunet. If your host computer can't send directly to uunet, you
will have to precede the above path with one that starts with a machine that
your's communicates directly with and ends with a machine name that
communicates with uunet, plus another '!', e.g.
nearby!farther!uunet!cash!bucks!smiley
>From an Internet Host - To a Usenet Host
----------------------------------------
If your machine is on the Internet and the other is on Usenet, you can
use something like:
bucks!smiley@uunet.uu.net
>From a Usenet Host - To an Internet Host
----------------------------------------
If your machine is on Usenet only and the other is on the Internet, you can
use something like either of the following:
nearby!farther!uunet!ladder.princeton.edu!bert
nearby!farther!uunet!bert@ladder.princeton.edu
>From an Internet Host - To a Compuserve User
--------------------------------------------
To mail to a Compuserve user with an ID of aaaaa,bbbb:
aaaaa.bbbb@compuserve.com
Note that the comma in the ID becomes a period in the Internet address.
>From an Internet Host - To an MCI Mail Customer
-----------------------------------------------
@mcimail.com
***********************************
Why me? Can't I just lick a stamp?
************************
Once you realize that you can get a message from across the country in under 2
hours depending on how frequently you poll a dial-up computer or within a few
minutes on the Internet, you'll learn to enjoy the convenience of this
facility.
The main benefits of electronic mail are that:
it always sits and waits until the addressee has time for it;
it decreases work interruptions, allowing more time and thoughtful
responses to other people's thoughts and questions;
it provides data that you can work with and modify, unlike
facsimiles and voice mail;
it is the backbone of many large organizations wide-area
communications strategies for the 90's and thus a safe investment of
time and money;
logical, non-location dependent addressing is much simpler and
reliable than postal addressing; automatic mail forwarding is also
available;
e-mail is a very cost effective means of messaging.
By the way, UUCP mail is a 1970's technology, although it has advanced a great
deal. (UUCP mail addresses use the '!', which is called a 'bang' rather than
an exclamation point because networking people don't have much time to read and
because they love to save syllables. Internet mail dates back even farther
than UUCP mail. Domain-based mail addressing became a phenomenon in the
mid-1980's.
==============================================================================
Bob Weiner
rsw@cs.brown.edu
-- Explaining Real Computers to Real People
----------------------------end 2nd insert------------------------
This could be of help; it may, better should, be edited.
==michel eytan@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 11:18:08 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@princeton.edu>
Subject: re:ejournals/ AVAILABLE VIA USENET
Below, Timo Harmo points out the important alternative that I omitted:
That an already established Listserv group can establish a Usenet feed
without having to go through the formality of a vote. -- SH
> Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 10:54:00 EET
> From: "TIMO HARMO (FAC. OF SOCSCI U OF HELSINKI)" <harmo@cc.helsinki.fi>
> Comments: To: ARACHNET@acadvm1.uottawa.ca
>
> > with a readership of 200 or more are POTENTIALLY on Usenet,
> > because all that is needed is an affirmative vote of about that
> > many in order to establish a new Usenet group. This is how
> > PSYCOLOQUY created its
>
> There is also a easier way. If you want to establish a link to Usenet,
> you can:
> 1. Get the agreement of the people in the list (it is enough if there
> are no serious objections, you don't have to vote)
> 2. state your wish in bit.admin (again, hoping that there will be no serious
> objections)
> 3. get the agreement of the postmaster of your listserv-site and of the
> news-gateway you'll be using, and get these two to co-operate to
> establish the link (most bitnet-list are gatewayed thru ... was it
> American University, american.edu I think)
>
> You will find more detailed instructions in bit.admin, they make a regular
> posting of it.
> I don't think any worth-while list will be refused a link.
>
> -Timo Harmo, harmo@cc.helsinki.fi
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 11:34:48 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Howard Pasternack <blips15@brownvm.bitnet>
Subject: re:ejournals/ AVAILABLE VIA USENET
I am sort of surprised on the archiving discussion that no one has mentioned
Faxon and its announced intention to become a distributor or electronic
publications.
As head of systems of academic library, I would have to say that I do not
view Usenet as a viable solution for distributing electronic information
to our local clientele. A Campus Wide Information Server would provide
far superior capabilities for making available both local and networked
electronic information using a common interface. An even a CWIS server
with its ASCII text emphasis is not a full solution, particularly
as electronic publications migrate from ASCII text to full electronic
markup.
Howard Pasternack
Brown University
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 21:33:22 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Bill Kownacki <kownacki@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: Do Electronic Journals Make Sense?
I have been following with interest the recent postings on
cooperative publishing and archives/repositories of electronic
information and it seems to me that there's a fundamental issue
that needs to be addressed: i.e. does the journal as a means of
scholarly communication still make sense in the electronic medium?
I'd like to suggest here that many of the problems that seem so
confusing and unresolvable such as archival storage, academic
hesitance to accept electronic publication, the legitimacy of the
scholar's text when it can be so easily manipulated, etc. arise
primarily because we are trying to duplicate in an electronic
format the exact same system we currently have in print. Although
this system has worked well for slightly over 300 years, there are
now a number of signs that it is starting to break down including:
-Rapid inflation in serials pricing
-Explosive growth in the size of the literature and in new titles
-The breakdown of research into "least publishable units" and
extensive co-authorship.
-Severe fiscal constraints on libraries which find they can no
longer afford to purchase many articles (bundled in a journal) for
the few that will actually be read. The situation is excacerbated
by shortages of storage space and extensive costs in processing
large numbers of subscriptions.
We have also arrived at the seemingly bizarre situation described
by Ann Okerson where: "...articles based on work created largely in
universities and laboratories and paid for-and value added-largely
at public expense become the property of organizations that own the
rights, with the result that it is increasingly difficult for the
public to own and read publicly supported research." ^1^
The publishers of today's electronic journals are to be commended
for showing us it is possible to break out of this model and
support an inexpensive (for the consumer), free flow of quality
information. Yet in automating the journal format, we may be
simply preserving some of the other problems in a new medium.
There is a major trend within academic libraries toward what may be
called "access (where appropriate) over ownership" or the
procurement of materials "just-in-time" as opposed to "just-in-
case." What this will ultimately boil down to is electronic
document delivery within the context of a print (or download)-on-
demand system. It seems to me that the article, and not the
journal, is now becoming the basic unit of information, and that
the major challenge to libraries is to bring physical access
(getting your hands on it) up to par with bibliographic access.
With the ascendancy of electronic bibliographic information from
online services and CD-ROM, it seems that users of information are
thinking less in less in terms of the journal (which may have
previously been regularly browsed) and more in more in terms of
individual articles (or conference papers) that they have
discovered through citations or searches of electronic databases.
If we are moving to a system of retrieve on demand, does it make
sense to continue to bundle unrelated articles into a journal
issue, whether it is in print or electronic format?
To be fair, today's e-journal publishers are making sensible
concessions to the electronic format: publishing one article per
issue, sending out just the abstracts and allowing users to
retrieve only desired articles, storing an index of documents
available at the Listserv, etc. Others, such as the _Online
Journal of Current Clinical Trials_ are really databases, even
though they probably wouldn't admit it and can even demonstrate
ISSNs as proof of their serial status. :-) I suspect that the
phrase "electronic journal" has simply become fashionable and we're
overlooking the obvious: that electronic information naturally
coalesces into databases, with articles (or electronic documents)
being the basic unit of information. Even the "concessions"
described above are all movements in the direction of article
databases and away from being journals proper.
I want to make it clear here that I am talking about a model for
the publishing and archival storage of scholarly research.
Electronic newsletters, Bitnet discussion lists, and journals
following the Psycoloquy model, will undoubtedly continue to
thrive, as they take advantage of the computer and networks as an
interactive, near instantaneous means of communication. Today's
peer-reviewed electronic journals have, to their credit, attracted
a surprising number of high qualtiy submissions. Yet as Michael
Strangelove has pointed out, many scholars are still reluctant to
publish in this medium and I think to make the transition we need
a different model than the electronic journal.
What I would like to see is some of the large information and
library players join with one or more scholarly societies to begin
creating some national subject databases. Such databases would
require peer review (no I haven't worked out all the details) to
get into, and also maintain the archival copy (assured textual
integrity) of the articles or documents. Users could probably
print or download specific articles as desired at low cost, since
none of the players in the system would appear to have a strong
profit motive. (Certainly not the original authors who are not
used to selling or benefitting from their copyright). The system
could easily provide current awareness, both in print and
electronic newsletters of abstracts, which could even be user-
tailored by various subject parameters. It would also seem
feasible to incorporate menu, boolean, and even more advanced
searching capabilities over time so that it would be a fully
integrated bibliographic, storage, and delivery system. Ultimately
such a system could increasingly incorporate multimedia, hypertext
(within and between documents), and other capabilities unique to
the electronic medium. Why not click on a piece of text, for
instance, to see a reference or a related image or chart? Over
time, all of the limitations of the current system we find so
natural could be increasingly questioned. An article, for
instance, could be as long or as short as it needed to be and
include the supporting raw data. The best early example of what
may be coming is probably the _Online Journal of Current Clinical
Contents_. There have been calls for such a system in the
literature, with the most impressive, in my opinion, being a recent
report from the American Physical Society calling for a National
Physics Database. ^2^
There are still, of course, many issues to be resolved and I'd love
to hear peoples' comments on these ideas since there are
undoubtedly questions I have failed to consider or address. I do
think such a system is coming and that the academic/non-profit
community is in a race with commercial interests to create it,
whether we realize it or not. Actually such a system operated by
commercial interests would probably still be a great improvement
over the present information chaos, but it would still probably be
just as expensive.
Another underlying issue is the format in which such electronic
documents would be stored, and I'd like to briefly advocate SGML
for it's flexibility, storage of text in manipulable ASCII, and the
ease in which such marked up documents could be indexed in a
database. An enhanced SGML could probably provide the links to
images and other multi-media which could also be stored. ^3^
1. Okerson, Ann "Incentives and Disincentives in Research and
Educational Communication," in "A University-Based Electronic
Publishing Network" _EDUCOM Review_ 25, 3 (Fall 1990): 14-20.
2. Report of the APS Task Force on Electronic Information Systems"
reprinted in _Bulletin of the American Physical Society_ 36,
(1991): 1119.
3. "The Role of a Descriptive Markup Language in the Creation of
Interactive Multimedia Documents for Customized Electronic
Delivery," in _Proceedings of the International Conference on
Electronic Publishing, Manipulation & Typography_ Gaithersburg,
MD, September 1990. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
______________________________________________________________________
| ___ ___________ |
| \ \ / ___ ___ / Bill Kownacki, Room 302 Newman Library |
| \ \/ / / / Science Department, Virginia Tech Libraries |
| \ / / / P.O. Box 90001, Blacksburg Virginia 24062-9001 |
| \/ /_/ Phone: 703-231-9237 E-Mail: kownacki@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu |
|______________________________________________________________________|
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 02:11:57 -0700
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz,
408/459-3297" <jaffe@ucscm.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Re: Do Electronic Journals Make Sense?
It is late and I should know better than to take on this issue
in my condition but I've been thinking along similar (but different)
lines ever since I've started following this forum.
Some of my points of departure are close to the same. For instance
I saw Richard Lucier, UCSF, speak at last summer's ALA meeting and he
posed the current situation as one in which universities spend large
amounts creating information, give it away and then buy it back at
highly inflated rates.
I also look at the awful lag in disseminating information through
journals. This was a problem that journals were originally created
to solve! As a consequence of the need to know long before something
can be published officially, scholars have found quite a few other
means of communicating more quickly. However, the journal remains
the primary record of "authenticated" research/work and the primary
means of attributing sources and the primary means of judging the
merits of scholarship (and scholars - don't forget citation counts
and tenure committees!).
Another nail in the coffin of scholarly communication is the referee
system. It tends to perpetuate the "ol'boy" system and forcesgood,
but controversial scholarship into the fringe literature or just
stifles creativity. Further, the number of highly publicized cases
of academic fraud, published in prestigious, refereed journals raises
doubts as to whether it is worth the wait.
So when I look at this brave new world of electronic publishing
I'm disappointed in how much it apes the print world. It is parti-
cularly aggravating when it tries to compete with print on print's
strong points, specifically archivability. And then we try to saddle
e-journals with refereeing when its strong point ought to be rapid
dissemination.
My take on this is that electronic publishing ought to change,
perhaps even improve, scholarly communication in some significant
way. I think that it could help turn the tables in the uneven
exchange between universities and publishers. I think that it
should help get information out quickly and perhaps more democrat-
ically than we are doing now. I don't think that it should worry
too much about authenticating results, developing archival or
retrieval tools. These can be taken care of by others or the
means will show up eventually. (Do you think that the NY Times
published an index with the first issue or mailed a set to UMI?)
I think that universities should self-publish the research they
support. I think that the university itself would be taking
more responsibility for authenticating the validity of the work
though not necessarily refereeing articles. The primary focus
would be quick dissemination. Some effort at archiving and
retrieval, though minimal, would have to be made but for a
relatively short term. The importance and validity of electroni-
cally published works would be established by vox populi --
comment it generated -- and by the usual methods -- citation,
generally. Publishers would vie for rights to reprint important
material and libraries would still buy print journals in order
to have archival copies.
That's the short version.
--- Lee Jaffe
UC Santa Cruz
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 09:45:22 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stu Weibel <stu@rsch.oclc.org>
Subject: Re: Do Electronic Journals Make Sense?
> I think that universities should self-publish the research they
> support. I think that the university itself would be taking
> more responsibility for authenticating the validity of the work
> though not necessarily refereeing articles.
University validation of results is both impractical and unrealistic.
Often there might be only a single person or group at the institution
with sufficient depth of understanding to do the validation (the group
that did the work).
In addition, the University may have a vested interest in the success
of the work, and might be less than rigorous in challenging the work of
its own investigators. The cold fusion debacle at the University of
Utah is the definitive example here; the glare of huge economic
potential blinded decision makers and dealt a fine University a serious
blow, to say nothing of the taxpayer's of Utah.
It is not clear that universities will publish research in a more cost
effective manner than publishers, though the ability redistribute the
costs in new ways may well make it appealling for the budget process.
The charge that publishers are gouging is common and seldom challenged
(except by the publishers). Has anyone systematically examined the
underlying economics to understand the true costs involved? The root
cause of the crippling inflation in serials costs may be more complex
than is now clear, and making universities into publishers may not be
the best way to promote the goal of freely flowing information.
Stuart Weibel
OCLC Office of Research
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 10:38:09 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Comments: Resent-From: GMCMILLA@VTVM1
Comments: Originally-From: Howard Pasternack <blips15@brownvm>
From: GMCMILLA@VTVM1.BITNET
I thought readers of VPIEJ-L would be interested in Pasternack's response. As
is not unusual, I'm confused by all that I don't know. It seems to me that so
far there isn't a better alternative than the one VPI&SU has chosen for
archiving electronic journals: University Libraries subscribes to 8 e-
journals, mounts them on VM1 (university's mainframe computer) and thereby
archives them locally, and informs our user community through the online public
catalog that these e-journals are available. Am I missing something? While
what the library has chosen to do with e-js is in many ways following tradi-
tional library practices, we have consciously chosen to do so because it is
what works best with the resources (computer, personnel, reference, etc.) that
we have at hand. What the better alternatives are NOW, today available?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.........................Gail McMillan........................
___....____________......Serials Team Leader..................
\ \../ ___ ___/.........University Libraries VPI&SU.......
.\ \/ /../ /.............Blacksburg, VA - (703) 231-9252...
..\ /../ /..............FAX (703) 231-3694................
...\ /../ /.................................................
....\/../__/..........INTERNET.....gmcmilla@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU....
......................BITNET.......gmcmilla@VTVM1.............
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 10:04:42 EDT
From: Howard Pasternack <blips15@brownvm>
Subject: Re: re:ejournals/ AVAILABLE VIA USENET
To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving, and Access"
<vpiej-l@vtvm1>
In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 09 Apr 92 09:52:05 EDT from <gmcmilla@vtvm1>
========================================================================
A CWIS server has nothing to do with CMS. I am not sure what INFO is,
but I assume it is the name of some service on your local mainframe.
A CWIS server is typically a UNIX fileserver which a user accesses from
a network. A lot of them run software developed by MIT. They look like
Macintoshes, but they are not. Typically they have file folders in them
with files which can be read or printed. The files are all "text only".
This means there are no fonts, highlighting, graphics, or anything else
to enhance the text. The CWIS servers work well with the "text only" files
masquerading as "electronic journals". You have a file folder in your
"library" folder for different journals. The CWIS servers also provide
the capability to search the text. Several of these servers are listed
in the Art St. George list of opacs and are accessible via telnet.
-- Howard
On Thu, 09 Apr 92 09:52:05 EDT <gmcmilla@vtvm1> said:
>Could you please translate the very last sentence. Do you know if CWIS server
>is something that makes CMS and INFO work? And, why won't CWIS work with "full
>electronic markup"? Thanks,
>
> ---------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I am sort of surprised on the archiving discussion that no one has mentioned
>Faxon and its announced intention to become a distributor or electronic
>publications.
>
>As head of systems of academic library, I would have to say that I do not
>view Usenet as a viable solution for distributing electronic information
>to our local clientele. A Campus Wide Information Server would provide
>far superior capabilities for making available both local and networked
>electronic information using a common interface. An even a CWIS server
>with its ASCII text emphasis is not a full solution, particularly
>as electronic publications migrate from ASCII text to full electronic
>markup.
>
>Howard Pasternack
>Brown University
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>.........................Gail McMillan........................
>___....____________......Serials Team Leader..................
>\ \../ ___ ___/.........University Libraries VPI&SU.......
>.\ \/ /../ /.............Blacksburg, VA - (703) 231-9252...
>..\ /../ /..............FAX (703) 231-3694................
>...\ /../ /.................................................
>....\/../__/..........INTERNET.....gmcmilla@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU....
>......................BITNET.......gmcmilla@VTVM1.............
========================================================================
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 10:54:01 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Editors of PMC <pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Do Electronic Journals Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 8 Apr 1992 21:33:22 EDT from <kownacki@vtvm1>
Bill--
I don't think that many e-journal editors/publishers would disagree with
your forecast or your wish-list; certainly that's the direction that
PMC is moving in. But I do think that there is still a utility to the
term "journal" and even (at this point in the history of transition from
paper to e-text) to "issues": the utility of these fictions is that they
make authors more comfortable and more willing to publish in this medium.
There's also the business of special issues--grouped sets of articles on
a single topic or theme. I'd argue there's still some utility to that,
too. Perhaps in physics, it would be enough to say to one's tenure
committee that one had several articles in the peer-reviewed national
physics database: in the humanities, it still makes sense to say "I had
an article published in Journal X." One step at a time.
John Unsworth
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 08:53:09 PDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: David Robison <drobison@library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Do Electronic Journals Make Sense?
One advantage (as I see it) of print-journal publication is the
relationship between the reader and the journal itself. Readers
come to respect a journal and the articles within it. We, as both
users and librarians, evaluate material to a certain degree according
to the journal it is in.
Further, readers become accustomed to the editorial style of a
journal and come to expect articles in the journal to conform
to that style.
Readers may also like a journal enough to read or at least scan
each article in each *issue* of a journal that they might not
otherwise retrieve.
These advantages may be retained in a non-article-based publishing
scheme through the use of some approval method (i.e., "This article
is published under the auspices of PMC"). I hope we don't lose
these advantages as paradigms shift.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 12:13:42 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Joseph Raben <jqrqc@cunyvm.bitnet>
Subject: Universities as publishers of scholarly information
Suggestiong that universities "authenticate" information by
publishing it associates two distinct functions: refereeing submissions
and disseminating them. As for the former, seeking authorities within a
single university would not benefit cutting-edge activities. When I
started _Computers and the Humanities_ in 1966, there was no one in CUNY
(and only one person in all New York) who could act as a referee on
submissions, and I had to scour North America and Europe for people who
could pass judgement on such esoterica as whether a computer could help
to establish a "national quality" in selected string quartets! So I
would suggest that refereeing be kept as it is now, a function of
experts wherever they may be. As for dissemination, however, the current
economics of print publishing should not be used as a basis for
advocating (or contesting) the role of electronic networks in speeding
up the distribution of research results and cutting the cost to all
involved.
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 02:29:19 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@princeton.edu>
Subject: Peer Review and the Net
Michael C. Berch (mcb@presto.ig.com) wrote to the Usenet moderators
group:
> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 15:50:53 -0800
> Subject: Re: Usenet and Archiving of Electronic Journals
> To: moderators@cs.purdue.edu
>
> While the concept of formal peer review has its place in academic
> research and publication, it is hardly a litmus test for the current
> importance or lasting value of a publication.
>
> In some ways, Usenet and similar conferencing systems have made
> journals and traditional academic communication obsolete. Dr. Harnad
> seems to want to cling to the traditional forms which retain the
> power of academic elites (even if clothed as "electronic journals").
Peer review is far from infallible, but it's the best form of quality
control we can manage in scholarly and scientific publication. It also
provides a basis for calibrating one's reading in what would otherwise
be an overwhelming information glut.
As to Nets making journals obsolete: this is far from true.
Unfortunately, the transition to the Net is still far too slow; and the
current demography of Usenet is VASTLY different from the readership
and authorship of the tens of thousands of scholarly and scientific
journals that exist today.
There are indeed some academic elites, but I hardly represent them! I'm
considered a maverick in those circles. Nor is the kind of open peer
commentary I advocate the kind of thing that perpetuates entrenched
interests. There's room for reform in peer review, to be sure, but
let's not think of it as being all that sinister: Virtually everything
eventually gets published in some (paper) journal or other. Peer review
just channels it to a particular level in the qualitative hierarchy,
and the beleaguered readership is grateful for that. Grepping keywords
and citations is no substitute for prescreening by qualified
specialists in any given field.
> I would like to see libraries take, retain, and archive as much
> information as is possible (Usenet as well as other electronic
> sources), free of ivory-tower bias, and then make available to
> users/consumers powerful tools that permit them to search, sort,
> organize, annotate, and copy the desired information, and to obtain
> input on how other people, academics included, view that information.
> I consider it our mission as Usenet "librarians" to help build and
> distribute those tools, not to help perpetuate a backward system.
This seems to conflate the mission of Usenet and that of academic and
research libraries. The latter are currently specialized in the tens of
thousands of paper journals I mentioned. Their interest in Usenet, at
least initially, would be as a format for making the electronic
counterparts of those (mostly) peer reviewed journal available to their
readerships. Usenet's anarchic spirit is to be admired and encouraged
on its own turf, but it makes about as much sense to recommend this
unconstrained model on the scholarly community as it does to recommend
that all Usenet postings should first undergo peer review! The agendas
are different, even if they will converge and overlap in part.
For the record, though, I do think that new and powerful electronic
methods of bibliographic search, retrieval and evaluation will become
increasingly important to the scholar trying to make his way through
the information glut, but it will be no substitute for peer review.
Stevan Harnad
---------------------------------
Harnad, S. (1979) Creative disagreement. The Sciences 19: 18 - 20.
Harnad, S. (ed.) (1982) Peer commentary on peer review: A case study in
scientific quality control, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Harnad, S. (1984) Commentary on Garfield: Anthropology journals: What
they cite and what cites them. Current Anthropology 25: 521 - 522.
Harnad, S. (1984) Commentaries, opinions and the growth of scientific
knowledge. American Psychologist 39: 1497 - 1498.
Harnad, S. (1985) Rational disagreement in peer review. Science,
Technology and Human Values 10: 55 - 62.
Harnad, S. (1986) Policing the Paper Chase. (Review of S. Lock, A
difficult balance: Peer review in biomedical publication.)
Nature 322: 24 - 5.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 10:40:35 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@princeton.edu>
Subject: Re: Peer Review and the Net
> Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 01:19:52 -0700
> From: jaffe@ucscm.UCSC.EDU (Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz)
>
> I realize I'm coming into this debate cold and late and I'm
> willing to listen to reason. I had a talk with someone over
> the weekend while at the "Bibliotheque de France and the
> Future of the Library" program and they also felt refereeing
> was important. But I get a sense that this repeated more as
> a litany and with the assumption that it is either that or
> nothing. Maybe my idea isn't that practical. Would you
> consider something along the lines of the Genome project's
> approach, issuing un-reviewed items but tagging them as such
> until they can be reviewed. Once they've been passed, they
> go into another database with a seal of approval. What other
> forms of authenticating work would you consider? Citations?
> Reproduction of the experiments? Does it have to be refereeing?
>
> -- Lee Jaffe
There is room for many approaches in this new medium, but I have a
rather specific agenda: Currently, the world scholarly community reads
and writes in peer reviewed paper. The proportion of them that is on
the Net at all (in the West, perhaps 10 - 40 %, depending on
discipline) uses the Net to send email and perhaps read some lists, but
virtually none would consider publishing an article in an electronic
journal. Why? Because the paper medium is fully "authenticated" (as you
put it) already, and the electronic medium is not.
I believe it is a foregone conclusion that the world scholarly
community will convert completely to the Net sooner or later, for
virtually all their reading and writing. I would like it to be sooner
rather than later (life is short). The one tried and true common factor
that the two media can share is classical peer review as their method of
quality control. In my judgment, nothing less rigorous and familiar
will make the world scholarly community consider the Net safe for their
publications in the immediate future. There is of course plenty of room
for innovation on the Net, but only AFTER the exodus has taken place
(or at least a critical mass has been reached). Until then, more
futuristic forms of peer review (or no review at all) will only retard
the process by compounding the novelty of, and hence the doubts about,
the new medium.
There is only one respect in which I have departed from this goal of
making the new waters as familiar and hence safe for swimming as
possible, and that is in stressing the Net's unique potential for rapid
interactive publication ("open peer commentary" in the paper medium,
"scholarly skywriting" on the Net), but this, too, would only consist
of REFEREED target articles and REFEREED peer feedback on them. I
believe, though, that this unique interactive capability of the Net,
which it can provide over and above providing classical peer-reviewed,
archived publication, may just be the factor that will put the Net over
the top, for it can extend a scholar's intellectual lifeline by an
order of magnitude, and the effect can be felt virtually at once, at
a biological tempo that is much more in phase with the potential speed and
scope of human thought than the hopelessly slow turnaround time of paper
publication.
So: Classical peer review (with peer commentary) on the Net for now;
innovations of peer review only once a significant portion of the world
scholarly community is already publishing on the Net.
Stevan Harnad
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 11:33:00 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Bill Drew -- Serials Librarian <drewwe@snymorva.bitnet>
Subject: Re: Peer Review and the Net
Is there any reason why the discussion of referreeing of ejournal must
be carried out on four different lists? Why does it need to be on
PACS-L as well as the lists specializing in ejournals/? How many
people are truly unique to just one of the four? I subscribe to all
four because the material interests me not because I want to see the
same item four times. Please consider this comment.
-Bill Drew-
******************************************************************
Wilfred Drew (call me "BILL")
Serials/Reference/Computers Librarian
SUNY College of Agriculture & Technology
P.O. Box 902, Morrisville, NY 13408-0902
Bitnet: drewwe@snymorva SUNYNET(DECnet): smorv::drewwe
InterNet: drewwe@SNYMORVA.CS.SNYMOR.EDU
Voice: 315-684-6055 Fax: 315-684-6115
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 09:44:04 -0700
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: "Lee Jaffe, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz,
408/459-3297" <jaffe@ucscm.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Re: Peer Review and the Net
So: Classical peer review (with peer commentary) on the Net for now;
innovations of peer review only once a significant portion of the world
scholarly community is already publishing on the Net.
Stevan Harnad
====================================================
Dear Stevan,
Your approach is eminently practical. I wouldn't suggest you
change it. There have to be people willing and interested in
bridging the two worlds. On the other hand, I consider myself
to be an iconoclast. I would be railing about the print world
even if there wasn't electronic publication as a possibility.
Perhaps because what I've seen happen to journal prices and
library budgets, I'm convinced that the print business has become
corrupt and unwieldy. One of my basic tenets is that technology
doesn't make problems but reveals them. I'm looking for a way
to change the way we communicate, not the media but the social
and economic relations.
-- Lee Jaffe
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 17:57:08 +0100
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Michel Eytan LILoL <me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr>
Subject: Re: Peer Review and the Net
Is there any reason why the discussion of referreeing of ejournal must
be carried out on four different lists? Why does it need to be on
PACS-L as well as the lists specializing in ejournals/? How many
people are truly unique to just one of the four?
I am, sorry.
==michel eytan@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 16:54:43 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@princeton.edu>
Subject: Re: Do Electronic Journals Make Sense?
> Bill Kownacki <kownacki@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu>
>
> ...does the journal as a means of scholarly communication still make
> sense in the electronic medium?... in automating the journal format, we
> may be simply preserving some of the other problems in a new medium...
>
> I suspect that the phrase "electronic journal" has simply become
> fashionable and we're overlooking the obvious: that electronic
> information naturally coalesces into databases, with articles (or
> electronic documents) being the basic unit of information...
>
> Today's peer-reviewed electronic journals have, to their credit,
> attracted a surprising number of high qualtiy submissions. Yet as
> Michael Strangelove has pointed out, many scholars are still reluctant
> to publish in this medium and I think to make the transition we need a
> different model than the electronic journal...
>
> What I would like to see is some of the large information and library
> players join with one or more scholarly societies to begin creating
> some national subject databases. Such databases would require peer
> review (no I haven't worked out all the details) to get into...
>
> There have been calls for such a system in the literature, with the
> most impressive, in my opinion, being a recent report from the American
> Physical Society calling for a National Physics Database...
>
> Report of the APS Task Force on Electronic Information Systems"
> reprinted in _Bulletin of the American Physical Society_ 36,
> (1991): 1119.
Unfortunately, "working out the details" of implementing peer review in
a database amounts to EXACTLY the same thing as designing peer-reviewed
electronic journals (what you call them does not much matter)! Quality
control and overcoming "scholars' reluctance" are still the problems
that need to be solved, no matter what label is used. The APS report
cited above is discussed in the article below in Serials Review's
special forthcoming issue on "Economic Models for Electronic
Publication."
Harnad, S. (1992) Interactive Publication: Extending the American
Physical Society's Discipline-Specific Model for Electronic Publishing.
Serials Review: pp. 58 - 61.
Stevan Harnad
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:20:38 PDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: tleonhardt@MADVAX.UOP.EDU
Subject: Mojo Sloth Seeks Info on archiving electronic material
Recently I received a letter from Joseph A. Reynolds, III, the
editor of THE MOJO SLOTH, P.O. Box 20676, Roanoke, VA 24018 (703)
772-4801. The text of his letter is as follows. If any of you have
some ideas for Mr. Reynolds, I would appreciate it if you would
contact him directly. The MOJO SLOTH is not on the Internet (don't
you wish it were?) so USPS and the telephone are your means of
reaching him. Thanks for any help you can give him.
Tom Leonhardt, Editor, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES
To Whom It May Concern:
I am an editor for a regional magazine in Southwestern Virginia.
Currently, we are in the process of setting up an in house
archiving system. We are also considering setting up access to an
on-line system such as Viewtext, Nexus, etc. Although Viewtext
would be our preferred on-line system, we were hoping that you
[LITA/ITAL] might be able to refer us to a system that would be
more suitable to our needs, specifically, a regional alternative
press in the process of expanding.
Any information that you could send us would be greatly
appreciated.
Thank you,
Joseph A. Reynolds, III
THE MOJO SLOTH
P.O. Box 20676
Roanoke, VA 24018
(703) 772-4801
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 16:30:10 EDT
Reply-To: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet>
Subject: SGML FAQ
Frequently asked questions concerning SGML are now answered in the VPIEJ-L
archive. Send mail to LISTSERV@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU with a get command:
GET SGML FAQ
___ ____________ |---------------------------------------|
\..\ /..___...___/ | James Powell |
\..\/../ /../ | Systems Support and Development |
\..../ /../ | University Libraries, VPI & SU |
\../ /../ | Blacksburg, VA (703) 231-3336 |
\/ /__/ | FAX (703) 231-3694 |
Internet JPOWELL@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU or JPOWELL@VTTCF.CC.VT.EDU |
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 00:01:54 +0200
Reply-To: Erik Naggum <enag@ifi.uio.no>
Sender: "Publishing E-Journals : Publishing, Archiving,
and Access" <vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>
Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was enag@IFI.UIO.NO
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Subject: Re: SGML FAQ
In-Reply-To: <199204142033.AAifi05373@ifi.uio.no> (14 Apr 1992 16:30:10
-0400)
| From: James Powell <jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu>
|
| Frequently asked questions concerning SGML are now answered in the VPIEJ-L
| archive. Send mail to LISTSERV@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU with a get command:
|
| GET SGML FAQ
I'm the author of this *draft* FAQ, and I've been gathering responses
for some four months, occationally writing on a publishable version 1.
This is, as you will notice, version "0.0", a very quickly written
piece which nonetheless has seemed useful enough not to delete.
A new version is in the making, and it may even be published on
schedule, which is before 15 Apr 1992 24:00:00 GMT. If you get this
file, please note that it's obsolete as of 16 Apr 1992.
I would really appreciate input on things people wonder about, and
the posters to this list form a very different population than those
who post to comp.text.sgml, so your questions are probably of a
slightly different nature than theirs.
Please mail suggestions, critique, comments, whatever's on your mind,
so I can produce an even better FAQ now right before Easter.
Thank you, and best regards,
</jpowell@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu></erik@naggum.no></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></enag@ifi.uio.no></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></kownacki@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu></harnad@princeton.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jaffe@ucscm.ucsc.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></drewwe@snymorva.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></harnad@princeton.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></harnad@princeton.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jqrqc@cunyvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></drobison@library.berkeley.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></kownacki@vtvm1></pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet><milla@vtvm1><milla@vtvm1></vpiej-l@vtvm1></blips15@brownvm></blips15@brownvm></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></stu@rsch.oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jaffe@ucscm.ucsc.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></kownacki@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></blips15@brownvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></harmo@cc.helsinki.fi></harnad@princeton.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></nnsc@nnsc.nsf.net></randall@uvaarpa.virginia.edu></me@suzuka.u-strasbg.fr></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></harnad@princeton.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></harnad@princeton.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></crtb@helix.nih.gov></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet><milla@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></drobison@library.berkeley.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></gnd@ohstmvsa></jqrqc@cunyvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></stu@rsch.oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></gnd@ohstmvsa.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></bnk@rsch.oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></pweiss@nlm.nih.gov></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></stu@rsch.oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></tbh@rsch.oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></stu@rsch.oclc.org></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></robin@utafll.uta.edu></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1></pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></jpowell@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></guedon@ere.umontreal.ca></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></pmc@ncsuvm></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></kownacki@vtvm1></pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></kownacki@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></crtb@helix.nih.gov></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet></vpiej-l@vtvm1.bitnet>