From: Paul Thind (cma$##$bluewin.ch)
Date: Sun May 28 2000 - 10:17:29 EDT
Dear Friends,
I want to make it clear to confused minds that Arkivoc or Arkivod are not my
journals. We have 250 referees from nearly 50 countries and we hope to have
thousands of authors and a lot more readers.
The idea for the Journal was that of Alan Katritzky. The initial donation
has been made by Alan & Linde Katritzky. Alan and Charles Rees have
organized the team (including myself) - to which new people are still being
added. I believe in this project and am simply trying to implementing a
small part of the overall strategy.
The Arkat Foundation is being structured in such a way that no one
individual (not even Alan or I or Charles) will be needed for its survival.
No one person is in charge. We have the Board of Referees, The Scientific
Editors, People in charge of Special Issues and Reviews, and the Technical
Editors and Support Staff. Except for the Support Staff, no one is being
paid!
This is the only way to make it a lasting institution. This may sound corny
... but Arkat is about Chemists helping Chemists. It belongs to you.
I think the arkat web site makes all this very clear.
I do not know enough about MolBank to copy the idea. Donors and customers
will decide who can offer the best product and service.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Thind
----- Original Message -----
From: Shu-Kun Lin <lin$##$mdpi.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list orglist <orglist$##$dq.fct.unl.pt>
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2000 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: ORGLIST: Information - Revolution?
> Very promising: at least there is one more journal which support the idea
> of MOLECULES (http://www.mdpi.org/molecules/) strongly. However,
> Dr. Paul Thind is correct. The online edition is free. MDPI sell CD-ROM
> and encourage authors to deposit samples and share samples.
> Is Dr. Paul Thind's other journal ARKIVOD's goal will be
> that of our MolBank at http://www.molbank.org/?
>
> Shu-Kun
>
> Dr. Shu-Kun Lin
> Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
> Saengergasse 25, CH-4054 Basel, Switzerland
> Tel. +41 79 322 3379, Fax +41 61 302 8918
> E-mail: lin$##$mdpi.org
> http://www.mdpi.org/lin/
>
> Paul Thind wrote:
> >
> > 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
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>
>
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