From: Paul Thind (cma$##$bluewin.ch)
Date: Fri May 26 2000 - 08:04:34 EDT
At ARKAT we have tried to involve as many scientists as possible when
deciding on the procedures for publishing and the checks and balances one
needs in place before manuscripts should be accepted for publication.
First of all there are obvious differences between say a Journal of Organic
Chemistry and a Journal of Physics. Secondly authors are not uniformly good.
This applies both to delivery of format and content. One can of course have
several journals - one of which could be a dustbin for all kinds of stuff.
My belief is that any alternative journal(s) it will only succeed if high
standards remain one of the primary objectives. Let us face it, the best
scientists are not going to publish their work these "free" online journals
unless standards are kept high. One needs these guys for all sorts of
reasons.
There are also costs associated with even free online publishing. We are
finding that on average a refereed manuscripts still requires 2-3 hours of
technical editing before it can be presented with a uniform format in
Arkivoc. At ARKAT we have paid staff doing this Publication Support work.
I urge you to be realistic. Online publications need structures, support
staff, hardware, software, printing, some advertising, marketing, fund
raising, packaging, posting capabilities. But if it is done in a
not-for-profit organization all this can be done at a fraction of the cost
of REED or Elsevier Publications and if there are no shareholders the user
can have it for free. BUT MONEY FOR THE PROJECT HAS TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE-
AND in the case of Arkat this is coming from donations, sale of chemical
samples, arranging conferences, and potentially selling other things online
and advertising.
Our second journal ARKIVOD - Archives of Organic Data is meant to fill the
gap in the database area. We can use your help in designing this database
and making sure it is made available for free to everyone.
I am very much interested in hearing from people who might want to lead this
effort in developing online spectra databases, compound database and other
useful services. We are willing to provide considerable help in terms of
software development work etc. But we need a leader!
Our motto is "Creating equality through equal access to knowledge."
Yours sincerely,
Paul Thind
----- Original Message -----
From: Thanasis Gimisis <gimisis$##$area.bo.cnr.it>
To: Multiple recipients of list orglist <orglist$##$dq.fct.unl.pt>
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2000 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: ORGLIST: Information - Revolution?
> I think that the list has touched one of the most important current
> topics in the subject of free dissemination of chemical information.
> Why Chemists can't do what physicists have been doing for all this time?
> The Physics preprint archive that Eugene Leitl mentioned is the proof
> of success of an article preprint and why not a structure and spectra
> database which can be built directly from us, direct providers and
> users of chemical information, circumventing specific Chemical
> Societies or Publishing Companies.
>
> The idea of a preprint server which receives chemical information in
> a convenient format for archiving can co-exist with the current
> status of variable-impact hard-copy journals and as Henry Rezpa has
> put it possible formats already have been proposed. All that is
> required is an extra effort from our part to transform an article to
> such a format. I think that if the procedure is kept simple and
> software or templates are constructed to aid this transformation it
> will be adopted by a large number of researchers in the long run.
>
>
> >Eugene Leitl writes:
> >
> >The chemical society as a whole has allowed this to happen, by
> >tolerating the status quo for years, despite existiance of essentially
> >zero-cost publishing on the web. (For instance, consider the
> >electronical preprint archive for the physical community at
> >http://xxx.lanl.gov )
> >
> >... a globally accepted open/noncommercial expandable
> >document publishing standard has to be defined (inasmuch chemical XML
> >doesn't qualify already), which has to have means of intelligent full
> >text, structure (unique SMILES or graphs) and (IR, MS, NMR) spectre
> >searching. These standards have to be implemented in OpenSource
> >software, putting the development into the hands of the users. All
> >this is not exactly rocket science so far.
>
>
> __________________
>
> ORGLIST - Organic Chemistry Mailing List
> Website / Archive / FAQ: http://www.orglist.net/
> List coordinator: Joao Aires de Sousa (jas$##$mail.fct.unl.pt)
>
>
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