Re: Two layers of research literature

From: David Goodman <dgoodman_at_PHOENIX.PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2000 21:32:34 -0500

And, 5. When the complete backfile is available online, free.

(but that will still leave the journals which were discontinued with no
successor, and everything that isn't a journal.)

The present generation of researchers can and should proceed immediately
to free everything from this time forwards. There will still be the past
to deal with. There is a lot of work to do, and it will not be trivial
or inexpensive.

David Goodman, Princeton University Biology Library
dgoodman_at_princeton.edu 609-258-3235

On Wed, 1 Nov 2000, Stevan Harnad wrote:

>
> I am delighted to hear from George Lundberg about the
> freemedicaljournals site, which announces:
>
> "Within the next three years,
> the most important medical
> journals will be available
> online, free and in full-text.
> The access to free scientific
> knowledge will have a major
> impact on medical practice and
> attract Internet visitors to
> these journals. Journals that
> restrict access to their Web
> sites will lose popularity.
>
> "The Free Medical Journals Site
> is dedicated to the promotion
> of free access to medical
> journals over the Internet."
>
> http://www.freemedicaljournals.com lists nearly 400 biomedical journals
> whose full-text contents are being made available free on-line.
>
> A few of these are not free immediately, but only 6 months after
> publication; others are not free in their entirety (including, alas,
> the journal I edit, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, whose articles are
> free, but commentaries and responses are not); and still others were
> free, but are no longer free (e.g., JAMA).
>
> But these developments are very welcome indeed!
>
> All "S Harnad angst" will be obviated:
>
> (1) when not only the full-text contents of 400 of the biomedical
> journals, but the full-text contents of every last biomedical
> journal are freed online
>
> (2) when not only the contents of every last biomedical journal,
> but the contents of every journal in every discipline are freed
> online
>
> (3) when they are all freed immediately, and not after a 6 month
> embargo
>
> (4) and when they are all freed forever.
>
> Until that happy day is upon us, we can earnestly applaud such
> developments without flagging in the slightest in our efforts to free
> this entire literature, forever, through self-archiving, now:
> http://www.eprints.org
>
> P.S. "S Harnad Angst" is not about "repression/profit/etc." but about
> needless barriers to research impact, barriers that it is at last
> within the reach of researchers to eliminate, now, forever, without
> waiting for any other party to come around to doing it for them.
> http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december99/12harnad.html
>
> Once this corpus is free at last, vendors are free to continue selling
> for a fee whatever deluxe versions of it there might still be a market
> for, on-paper or on-line.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Stevan Harnad harnad_at_cogsci.soton.ac.uk
> Professor of Cognitive Science harnad_at_princeton.edu
> Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
> Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
> University of Southampton http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
> Highfield, Southampton http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
> SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
>
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
> access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
> American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00):
>
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
>
> You may join the list at the site above.
>
> Discussion can be posted to:
>
> american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
>
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT

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