Re: [EP-underground] Eprints.org links to open-access journals? (fwd)

A possible approach would be to use one of the open web directories
and have BOAI pay someone to keep it up to date. A simple list which 
is correct and complete in probably the most do-able approach. This
would be aimed at people *looking* for such publications so would 
cover eprints archives, open journals and maybe Other Stuff too.

It could be divided by either policy or subject area. Which really
depends if it is being done it for the benefit of people looking for
information or for people wanting to count the number of sites with
each policy (the first is, I think, more actually useful).

On eprints.org, Asking people to maintain their own archive info via 
a web interface did not work as they came back 6 months later and had
forgotton their user names & passwords. (Although it was a very simple
system without email reminders etc.)

-chris (eprints.org)

On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 03:43:17PM +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 09:07:55 -0500
> From: Peter Suber <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Manifesto] Eprints.org links to open-access journals?
> 
> At 12:44 PM 8/10/2002 +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> >[...]
> >We don't currently list free online journals on our links page. This
> >needs a little thought.
> >
> >Free online journals should really be linked with BOAI
> >http://www.soros.org/openaccess/view.cfm
> >(if he has not done so already, Dr. Boscainos should sign onto
> >the BOAI at http://www.soros.org/openaccess/sign2.shtml?o ).
> >
> >I don't want the Eprints links page to become a list of free online
> >journals. We of course strongly encourage and support free online
> >journals, but that is not what eprints.org is about. It is about providing
> >a remedy for the authors in those journals that are NOT yet free online.
> >
> >Perhaps on the eprints links page we could have yet another link,
> >to yet another page, and that link would be called "open access
> >journals." The other page would itself then list links to
> >open-access journals, stating at the top of the page that Eprints is meant
> >to be an author/institution solution for the NON-open-access journals
> >(i.e., the remainder of the 20,000 refereed journals that are NOT on
> >that list).
> >
> >But, in addition, it is not really enough to be an open-access journal. To
> >give authors' papers maximal visibility, accessibility and impact, the
> >open-access journals should also be archived in an OAI-compliant Archive,
> >interoperable with all the other OAI-compliant archives, and harvestable
> >by the OAI harvesters like OAIster, citebase, ARC, PKO/OAH. This too is a
> >reason not to simply list links to all current open-access journals on
> >eprints.org: If we are to have such an open-access-journal links page,
> >it should also stress that the open-access journals are encouraged to
> >make their online archives OAI-compliant.
> >
> >Links to non-OAI-compliant open-access journals might possibly perform
> >the function of alerting users to the fact that more open-access
> >contents are possible, and alerting authors to the fact that greater
> >visibility would be possible if their archive were OAI-compliant. But
> >even then, that reciprocity would make even more sense if the reciprocal
> >links were made with the OAI-harvesters like OAIster and PKO/OAH, and
> >not only with Eprints, which is merely the generic site for OAI-compliant
> >software.
> >
> >I am branching this to BOAI, for advice.
> >
> >Cheers, Stevan
> 
> 
> I've done some work designing what a good "directory of open-access 
> scholarship" would be like.  If it were to aim at anything close to 
> completeness, then I believe it would be expensive to build and expensive 
> to maintain.  If it were limited to open-access journals, it would be less 
> expensive but still costly.
> 
> I strongly encourage the creation of such a directory, but I don't believe 
> that anyone could do it on the side, the way many web lists are 
> made.  Stevan is right that eprints probably can't afford to maintain such 
> a list on its own (even apart from the slight mismatch of mission that he 
> mentions).
> 
> Many disciplines already have pages that collect links to all or most of 
> the open-access journals in the field.  As an interim solution, I've 
> considered a page of links to these pages.  While I have a good number of 
> them bookmarked, I haven't had time to launch the page.  Moreover, I'm 
> reluctant to start another list that I'd be committed to maintain.
> 
> Another interim solution for the open-access journals that happen make 
> their content OAI-compliant (unfortunately, a subset) is to write an app 
> that inspects the registered OAI archives and makes intelligent guesses 
> about what is a journal and what isn't, and what field it is in.  If these 
> guesses were all correctable by human beings, then much of the work could 
> be shifted to the software.  If the results were simply output to an HTML 
> page of links organized by discipline, the cost would be fairly low.  With 
> a little more investment, the results could be stored in an online database 
> allowing any given journal to be listed in more than one discipline and 
> allowing users to search for journals by discipline, keyword, dates of 
> online coverage, new additions, and so on.
> 
> I believe that OAI is interested in having a good directory of open-access 
> research literature, but is understandably concerned about its scope and 
> costs.  I'd be happy to be part of any future deliberations on this.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
> 

-- 

 Christopher Gutteridge                   [email protected]
 ePrints2 Coder, Support and Stuff        +44 23 8059 4833