----- Original Message ----- From: "Stevan Harnad" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 5:11 AM Subject: Auto-Archiving Conference Proceedings
> On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Ken Rouse wrote: > > > Various contributors to this forum > > have commented on the resistance of scientists in some fields (chemistry, > > for example) to Steven Harnad's proposals for exploiting internet > > technology to "free" the scholarly literature. A modest way to begin > > breaking down that resistance, I believe, might be the following: the > > establishment by professional societies of servers that would make all the > > conference papers produced at their meetings freely available electronically > > to all who need them--and in a timely fashion! This would pre-empt the > > present one year or more lag in the publication of conference papers in > > print journals. > > A good idea, and already within reach to any society that wishes to > implement it. The interoperable archiving software to do it all is > about to be made available; it is (and will remain) free, and so is > all the other software it uses. It is available from: > > http://www.eprints.org/software.html > Many (perhaps even most) papers given at scientific meetings aren't ready for publication. They are about work in progress. There are reasons for giving these papers. A good one is to exchange ideas with one's peers on how to improve the research in progress. A not so good one is that some folks can't get to meetings unless they give a paper. Either way, the author often talks from notes - not from a manuscript. In fact, some of the worst papers I've sat through were read from a manuscript.
