[OAI-general] Query on eprint archive indexing (fwd)

[Subbiah Arunachalam]

Arun calling from Madras, India. Congratulations to
ANU for establishing their own institutional Open
Archives. I was there at ANU late last month as a
guest of Dr Linda Butler, aquite but efficient
researcher in the area of science policy and
scientometrics, and I had the pleasure of having lunch
and exchanging notes on the OAI with a group of
librarians in the Canberra area. It is very important
that large research universities set up their own Open
Archives and make their research publications
avaialble free on the web to researchers everywhere.
In the last few weeks, leading commercial publishers
have promised to release more than a thousand
biomedical journals to be accessed free (after six
months of publication), a concession they had to make
if they have to survive the Public Library of Science
and Open archives movements. 

Arun
18 august 2001



 --- Stevan Harnad <harnad@coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk>
wrote: > On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Colin Steele wrote:
> 
> > The audio and print transcript is now available on
> the ABC website.
> >
>
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s345514.htm
> >
> > However, the main reason for the email is to ask
> your advice or point
> > me to someone. We've just established the ANU
> eprint archive for all
> > subjects and need to sort out our strategy for
> scaleability of keyword
> > indexing.
> > 
> > Do we allow the academics to give us their own
> keywords and then allow
> > natural language searching or do we attempt a
> thesaurus approach which
> > involves quite a lot of extra work on our side as
> we can't ask the
> > academics to go into thesauri as it's going to be
> bad enough to get
> > them to follow the copyright and OAI issues. It's
> just that when we get
> > let's say to tens of thousands of articles what is
> the best searching
> > and indexing procedure?
> > 
> > This is clearly from one who has not been involved
> in this technical side!
> > 
> > Colin Steele
> > Director Scholarly Information Services &
> University Librarian
> > Division of Information, R G Menzies Building (#2)
> > The Australian National University  
> > Canberra  ACT 0200
> > Australia
> > 
> > Tel +61 (0)2 612 52003
> > Fax +61 (0)2 612 53215
> > Email: colin.steele@anu.edu.au
> > Library Web: http://anulib.anu.edu.au/
> 
> Dear Colin, 
> 
> I am forwarding your query to the OAI and Eprints
> lists as yours is a
> technical question and has already had some thought
> and discussion
> devoted to it.
> 
> I would note, in passing, that by far the most
> pressing objective at
> this time is not that of devising the optimal
> indexing system for
> the Eprint Archives (though that can be
> accomplished) but that of
> getting CONTENT into those archives, as soon as
> possible (so that,
> if you like, there will be the data to optimize the
> indexing FOR!).
> 
> So my own feeling is that it is putting the cart
> before the horse to
> worry too much about indexing still-near-empty
> archives! The growing
> content itself, and its growing use, will drive the
> further
> optimizations in indexing and retrieval, not the
> other way round.
> 
> But inasmuch as worries about indexing may be
> delaying some people's
> self-archiving, by all means let us make a robust
> and general indexing
> system available, so that particular retardant, at
> least, is behind us
> and we can get on with it...
> 
> If ANU soes indeed have tens of thousands of
> articles in its Eprint
> Archives soon, it will already have taken a huge
> step for the entire
> research community, showing the way for all!
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Stevan
> 
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
> Stevan Harnad                    
> harnad@cogsci.soton.ac.uk
> Professor of Cognitive Science   
> harnad@princeton.edu
> Department of Electronics and     phone: +44 23-80
> 592-582
>              Computer Science     fax:   +44 23-80
> 592-865
> University of Southampton        
> http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
> Highfield, Southampton           
> http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
> SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM           
> 
> NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion
> of providing free
> access to the refereed journal literature online is
> available at the
> American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 &
> 01):
> 
>    
>
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html
> 
> You may join the list at the site above.
> 
> Discussion can be posted to:
> 
>     september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org 
> 
> 
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