[UPS] Click-Through Monopoly

[herbert van de sompel]

Hi,

I would like to introduce a little nuance to Mark's and Stevan's opinion
on the "hyped" linking project.  Indeed, at this point it is about
linking via a centrally ccontrolled system and most probably we face the
danger of micropayments for every reference linking click we do.  I have
warned for the latter in my April D-lib SFX paper.  

Still, the fact that DOIs are being added to citations can potentially
also be useful for open linking systems like SFX, if only the publishers
want to write the DOIs in an appropriate format in the publications.  I
have explicitely published how this could be done in my October D-lib
paper on SFX.  I have already been in touch with Wiley about this
possibility and so far, I did only get constructive feedback.  I share
Matk's preference for an SLinkS kind of algorithmic approach to linking
and am actively working with it.  The fact that a DOI is being inserted
for citations does not as such prevent one from doing this kind of
linking, again, as long as publishers write the DOIs in an appropriate
format.  As I argue in my third SFX paper, the DOI can be used to grab
the according metadata from the DOI metadatabase, and that metadata can
then be used to construct all kinds of algorithmic service links.  The
crucial point is to be able to transport the DOI from the reference to a
link-service other than the DOI service.  I call this opening the link. 
So the question is: will the DOI initiative open the link?

I know, all of this would not solve the financial firewalls issues
etc..., but it would allow others - not only that group of publishers
but for instance also institutions - to create service links for
citations too. 

greetings

herbert

Stevan Harnad wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> By my lights, this is a Trojan Horse: a click through monopoly,
> firewalled by site-licenses and/or micropayments, trying to
> weld in place the status quo.
> 
> The literature must be freed, and the citation linking and navigation
> must be free.
> 
> More anon.
> 
> Caveat Emptor.
> 
> Stevan
> 
> On Wed, 17 Nov 1999, Mark Doyle wrote:
> 
> > > From: Michael Friedman <friedman@highwire.stanford.edu>
> > > Date: 1999-11-17 13:45:09 -0500
> >
> > > Open Archiving folk,
> > >
> > > I was just made aware of an interesting proposal for Online Journal
> > > Citation linking.
> > > Take a look at <http://www.wired.com/news/reuters/0,1349,32592,00.html>
> > > if you are interested.
> > >
> > > This is all the info I know; HighWire has not been officially asked to
> > > do anything for the journals we publish, yet.
> >
> > Boy, is this thing being overhyped. It made it into the NY Times,
> > news.cnet.com, Cronicle of Higher Education, blah, blah, blah. Personally, I
> > think it is a step backwards, at least in the realm of physics (APS will not
> > be participating anytime soon). The DOI system for linking journal articles
> > in physics introduces more problems and expenses than it solves. Much better
> > is something like Hellman's S-Links-S (LinkOpenly now I think). No time now
> > for a full rant now, but I think people should be very careful before
> > creating DOI's for their works and before buying into a DOI system as their
> > primary linking interface.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> >
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