This may read a bit like a "commercial" but it is relevent to this discussion nonetheless be forewarned:
Allow me to point out that www.medscape.com <http://www.medscape.com> has created Medscape Select as a deliberate selection from Medline to begin to try to accomplish the clearly stated goal of Editor di Diodoro. One of the best things about Medline is it contains around 4000 medical journals. One of the worst things about Medline is it contains around 4000 medical journals, most of which the usual practicing physician never heard of and cares little or nothing about (and does not trust information from). Practicing physicians do not have time to study "the world literature"- be it traditional paper, electronic, self-archived or some mix. They want the most reliable and applicable information quickly. Medscape Select, a search process of only the "best" 269 of the 4000 Medline journals, is one Medscape method of meeting this real need. Our methodology for determining "best"---somewhat arbitrary to be sure--- is described at Medscape Select. And, far from Stevan's Harnad's statement of a few days ago suggesting that i as a person was trying to keep the medical literature behind fiscal barriers, i remind readers that my well documented position is quite the opposite, and for an example, www.medgenmed.com <http://www.medgenmed.com> is a FREE-to-all internet users, primary source, peer reviewed, general medical journal, the nature of which prevents the need for self-archiving, since it publishes quickly, after peer review, and proper editing, has relatively high acceptance rates since there are no paper costs, and is itself on Medline and in Medscape.Select. George Lundberg -----Original Message----- From: Danilo Di Diodoro [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 4:27 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Harnad's quotation Professor Rothenberg, thank you for your thorough analysis of my version of Harnad's quotation. I share your worries about the development of a possible new fractious industry (and it is already at work), but as you know, today readers have to protect themselves from the flood of irrelevant and unimportant information. And the need for this protection will last, at least until the all system will change (and also this change is already at work). In the meantime, while we are waiting for the disappearing of all the useless papers published in the field of Medicine (perhaps the 80? 90? per cent of all papers), I think that the ideal on line resource for scholars and scientists can't be all papers in all fields. In my view, the ideal resource should let the readers to ignore the existence of all the irrelevant papers. Who decides which are the irrelevant papers? It is impossible to answer to this question (the reader himself? But how could he decide it without reading the papers?), and, as a matter of fact, we are talking about ideal on line resource. In the real world, researchers should stop to write useless papers, and the "vanity press" should disappear from the field of Medicine, but this is another business... Thank you very much for your attention, Best regards, Danilo di Diodoro - Editor of Gli ospedali della vita - Bologna, Italy [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Richard Rothenberg wrote: Professor Di Diodoro: I think your revised version is admirable, but I would hate to be the one to decide what papers are really important in a field, and I'm afraid such a definition would generate a fractious new industry. Rich Rothenberg Richard Rothenberg, MD Editor-in-Chief Annals of Epidemiology 69 Butler St. SE Atlanta, GA 30303 TEL: 404-616-5606 FAX:404-616-6847 Email: [email protected]
