Dear Stevan, Thank you for your comments. You have raised some very interesting issues which we too have been thinking about for the Chemistry Preprint Server (CPS).
First of all, I think it is important to note that we also believe that the preprint server should act as a permanent archive of submitted articles. Chemists often communicate in different ways to many other scientists and to achieve our goals we are slowly having to change the mindset of chemists. Many chemistry publishers, however, are a potential barrier to the concept of preprints in chemistry. Many will not accept papers for submission which have already been preprinted elsewhere, and others will not accept the paper if it remains available in any other form. What we had initially planned to do, and in fact what we are doing, is only allowing the author to remove the full text of his/her paper if they provide details for us to create a hyperlink to an online version of the published article. This is done via software created by our sister company, MDL, called LitLink. All of the other details concerning the original submission to CPS, including the author name, affiliation, article title, abstract, and also the discussion about that article remain accessible on the CPS. Furthermore, the original articles are never erased from the server and can be used to contest issues of prior art. There is also nothing to stop an author posting an article on the CPS which has been submitted, refereed, accepted or even rejected by a journal publisher. The CPS policy is simply not to accept an article where the copyright has already been transferred to a publisher, unless that publisher supports the CPS. I hope these comments help to explain our policies. We would of course be most happy for you to comment further on the CPS, and maybe discuss it with you further. Bryan Vickery, Community Development Manager of ChemWeb.com will be attending the International Chemical Information Conference in Annecy this month, where I believe you are speaking. Best wishes, James
