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RE: [LIS-Forum] Autonomous Institutions : Position of Librarians
by Mailing List Manager 30 Jul '04

30 Jul '04

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 11:09:42 +0100 (BST) From: "[iso-8859-1] suresh kumar" <nsureshfcri(a)yahoo.co.in> Dear sir, In the best of my knowledge,in many autonomous organisations- situation is very pathetic.There are no formal rule of law and procedure/regulations for anything . The administrave ministry become a silent spectator to the activities of these organisations. Head of organisation will look forward to get guidelines form Ministry. Service Rules are mixure of Both FRSR and CSIR or similar organisations.In order to implement any Govt. of Inidia ofer,clearence from Governing council/Body required.The members of these Governing bodies are Top officers from Ministry and other Govt. organisations- least bothered about the autonomous bodies/its activities/employees.The failure is not marginal.But I agree that in the case of Hard work, the said advantage?/pressure is there in every autonomous organisation than Govt.since it functions like a private organisation.Similarly there are many autonomous organisations free from all these evils also. thanks Sureshkumar, Librarian,Fluid Control Research Institute(Govt. of India) Palakkad -kerala. nsureshfcri(a)yahoo.co.in --- Mailing List Manager <mailman(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> wrote: > Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 15:05:57 +0530 > From: Vyasamoorthy(a)icicikp.com > > Dear Friends: > > There is a plea from some quarters for help / > protection/ standardization > of pay scales, stream-lining promotion policy etc in > Autonomous > Institutions, especially for Librarians. > > Those in Autonomous institutions are at an advantage > over regular > government departments. Only those who are contended > with doing the > routine, collecting salary + perks etc at the end of > the month would enter > govt service. Those who desire to show their > competency, work hard, > improve themselves and the organization they serve > will choose private > organizations. Autonomous institutions under govt > give you the advantage > of both worlds. In an autonomous unit you need to > convince only one or two > bosses at the most and your line is clear for moving > up. In govt set ups > all employees are same; there is not much scope for > merit, intelligence or > hard work. Promotion is ensured by sitting in the > same seat for some years > at a stretch. Whether one deserves or not he would > get increments, salary > revision along with others. > > If you are capable you can move faster than the rest > in an autonomous > unit. If you just want to be mediocre, nobody > prevents you from being so > nor or you sacked for that. Why then crib? I do not > understand. > > Vyasamoorthy, P > _______________________________________________

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A case of sour grapes Re: RE: [LIS-Forum] Autonomous Institutions : Position of Librarians (fwd)
by Mailing List Manager 30 Jul '04

30 Jul '04

Date: 30 Jul 2004 08:22:48 -0000 From: Rajesh K Patil <rajeshbcd(a)rediffmail.com> Moderator's Note ---------------- Rajesh has a valid point. One shouldn't generalize things, especially when it comes to competency. We all have our own unique cracks and flaws. I request all the members to eschew such remarks in future. Let's not debate on it any further. Thanks for your cooperation, - Moderator -------Note ends here----------- � Hi, I don't think it is right to generalize that all Librarians in Government Service are incompetent. Even private sector has incompetent people. To be specific, my interaction with ICICI bank has been extremely disappointing. Hence, please avoid making such statements. Regards. Rajesh Thu, 29 Jul 2004 Mailing List Manager wrote : >Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 15:05:57 +0530 > From: Vyasamoorthy(a)icicikp.com > >Dear Friends: > >There is a plea from some quarters for help / protection/ standardization >of pay scales, stream-lining promotion policy etc in Autonomous >Institutions, especially for Librarians. > >Those in Autonomous institutions are at an advantage over regular >government departments. Only those who are contended with doing the >routine, collecting salary + perks etc at the end of the month would enter >govt service. Those who desire to show their competency, work hard, >improve themselves and the organization they serve will choose private >organizations. Autonomous institutions under govt give you the advantage >of both worlds. In an autonomous unit you need to convince only one or two >bosses at the most and your line is clear for moving up. In govt set ups >all employees are same; there is not much scope for merit, intelligence or >hard work. Promotion is ensured by sitting in the same seat for some years >at a stretch. Whether one deserves or not he would get increments, salary >revision along with others. > >If you are capable you can move faster than the rest in an autonomous >unit. If you just want to be mediocre, nobody prevents you from being so >nor or you sacked for that. Why then crib? I do not understand. > >Vyasamoorthy, P >_______________________________________________ >LIS-Forum mailing list >LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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Electronic Library
by Mailing List Manager 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 10:40:26 +0100 (BST) From: "[iso-8859-1] narayan ghosh" <narayanghosh(a)yahoo.co.uk> This is to write an article titled "Electronic Library: a bare necessity for professional institutions". To establish my logic I require some live example of Libraries digitized their documents or subscribing resources in electronic forms. Please help urgently. N.Ghosh National Institute of Management Calcutta Kolkata

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RE: [LIS-Forum] Autonomous Institutions : Position of Librarians
by Mailing List Manager 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 15:05:57 +0530 From: Vyasamoorthy(a)icicikp.com Dear Friends: There is a plea from some quarters for help / protection/ standardization of pay scales, stream-lining promotion policy etc in Autonomous Institutions, especially for Librarians. Those in Autonomous institutions are at an advantage over regular government departments. Only those who are contended with doing the routine, collecting salary + perks etc at the end of the month would enter govt service. Those who desire to show their competency, work hard, improve themselves and the organization they serve will choose private organizations. Autonomous institutions under govt give you the advantage of both worlds. In an autonomous unit you need to convince only one or two bosses at the most and your line is clear for moving up. In govt set ups all employees are same; there is not much scope for merit, intelligence or hard work. Promotion is ensured by sitting in the same seat for some years at a stretch. Whether one deserves or not he would get increments, salary revision along with others. If you are capable you can move faster than the rest in an autonomous unit. If you just want to be mediocre, nobody prevents you from being so nor or you sacked for that. Why then crib? I do not understand. Vyasamoorthy, P

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RE: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access
by Mailing List Manager 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:50:10 +0530 From: Manish Mankad <Manish.Mankad(a)unilever.com> I have some comments on Mr. Sathya;s and Mr. Bukhari's observations on OAI. Firstly, let us be clear on the issue of free access ( i.e OAI type) v/s value added access ( i.e paid like CA, WOS etc)..The current Contents is useful only when all the TOCs are cross linked for search purposes else as Mr. Bukhari suggests it has little more to offer. Going further, OAI holds a great future only if has a good search mechanism. Coming to scientist's recognition of his/her work, again that can be viewd into 2 parts: Firstly, as Mr. Bukhari suggests, OAI will improve the knowledge buildup by mutual sharing thereby avoid costly duplication.. this can percolate down to students' level where at present the concerned institutes might not have enough funds to go for those journals ( and that benefits none but publishers ONLY) Secondly, if the information is of IPR type, it will any not appear in the journals before it is registered with the patent authorities. hence fear of loosing a commercial value does not arise. -Manish Mankad Information Services Ext: 208/460 Tel: 022 28276208 Hindustan Lever research Centre B.D. Sawant Marg Andheri (E), Mumbai 400099 INDIA -----Original Message----- Date: 29 Jul 2004 06:36:58 -0000 From: afsar bukhari <bukhari_786(a)rediffmail.com> Dear Friends, I would like to share some of my views in connection with �Sabo Bill & Open Access� as pointed out by Mr. Sathya do chemists world over subscribe �..databases like CA will be superfluous. In present day environment, how many libraries are subscribing to Current Contents of ISI? CC gives alerts of recently published articles. When we have TOC email alerts of journals freely available, then, is it worth going for current contents? Both of them are almost achieving the same objective. It is also worth here to ask how many scientists are looking at CC Moreover, they are rigid in the sense that scientists should go to the library to refer them (because individuals cannot afford to subscribe to them at such prices). What I feel is, future of these services like CA, CC etc in Open Access Environment will depend on what unique features they are offering to the users compared to what is available freely. Regarding the copyright issue Again in the present model, authors of articles do not enjoy copyright. It is the publisher who retains it and makes profit at the cost of library�s displeasure. A primary fact, which should not be forgotten, is: Author publishes his/her work to increase its visibility that offers him recognition in the field. If the article has wider access, it will also stop re-inventing the wheel. And regarding the other apprehension raised by Mr. Sathya If a scientist desires to publish a book out of his research work, will any publisher be willing to pick it up. Yes I agree with this because Sabo bill clearly states Any Federal department or agency that enters into a funding agreement with any person for the performance of scientific research substantially funded by the Federal Government shall include in the agreement a provision that states that copyright protection under this title is not available for any work produced pursuant to such research under the agreement�. The implication of this would be, publisher would have to make the book freely available. In this connection my suggestion is, let the supporters of Open Access (Publishers or National Academies) come forward to accept such manuscripts and make it available in electronic format on net. If any body desires to have its printed version, let an on demand order� be placed with the publisher This is already into practice. At National Academic Press (www.nap.edu) most of the titles are freely available on the net in html or pdf format. And if you like, you can order a title in print at a reasonable price. Looking forward to others views which would enrich my further understanding Happy Reading & Warm regards S.A.A. Bukhari Librarian Shantha Biotechnics Pvt Ltd Medchal Hyderabad www.shanthabiotech.com library.factory(a)shanthabiotech.com On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 sathya wrote : >Question-1 > >Do Chemists world over subscribe to Arun's view that Databases like Chemical >Abstracts will become superfluous as OAI initiative matures covering a large >part of journal content? > >Question-2 > >Saboo bill is a threat to the academic freedom of the scientists which gives >them benefit of copyright for their published research works even though >money is spent by their respective institutes for doing research (be it >federal funding or others)? Are the scientist-authors willing to loose this >academic freedom? This issue which is at the heart of freedom of expression, >a very fundamental individual rights. If a scientist desires to publish a >book out of his research work, will any publisher be willing to pick it up >once the Saboo bill is passed as an act? > >Sathya >-------------------------------------------------- >N V Sathyanarayana >Chairman & Managing Director >Informatics (India) Ltd >Bangalore 560003, India >Phone : 91-80-23365940 >www.informindia.co.in >-------------------------------------------------- > >-----Original Message----- > From: Mailing List Manager [mailto:mailman@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] >Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 6:31 PM >To: lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access > >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 07:26:27 +0100 (BST) > From: "[iso-8859-1] Subbiah Arunachalam" <subbiah_a(a)yahoo.com> > >Sathya asks how would champions of OA like to deal >with secondary services [sucha as Chemical Abstracts]? > >I have not yet read his editorial and I will wait till >the print version arrives, but in the meantime let me >do a bit of loud thinking. > >The main purpose of OA in general is to make primary >research findings available free to anyone who cares >to read them. Especially final versions of refereed >papers. This goal can be achieved two ways: OAP and >OAA. There are now more than a thousand OAP journals. >Many of them charge a fee upfront from the authors >(who in turn charge it to their funding agencies). >This model is the 'author pays' model of BMC and PLoS. >There are others [like Current Science and Pramana] >which do not charge any fee from the authors or >readers. They charge a subscription fee to print >subscribers and probably get grants from funding >agencies. > >In the OAA approach, authors deposit the full text of >their papers [preprints, final accepted versions of >papers, and postprints] in archives - either a central >archive such as arXiv or an institutional archive. As >the institutional archives are interoperable, to the >searcher it would appear as if all these papers are >located in one distant server; one does not have to >search several servers. What is important to note is >that OAA has adopted the key features of secondary >services such as the use of metadata tags to make a >search for relevant documents. > >If all researchers deposit their papers in >institutional archives [as recommended recently by the >UK House of Commons S&T Committee] anyone having a >decent Internet connection can access any of those >papers deposited anywhere in the world using metadata >[keywords, etc]. > >This is what the secondary services try to achieve >partially. Imagine that I access the print version of >Chemical Abstracts. Using keywords, I can locate >papers of my interest. If I use the electronic version >[SciFinder] I can not only find out papers of my >interest but often can navigate my way to the actual >documents themselves, as SciFinder has agreements with >many primary journals. > >In a perfect world, the secondary services will become >superfluous. My guess is if the archiving habit picks >up [as it has to a large extent in physics], many >scientists will find it less and less necessary to go >to secondary services. A clear example of what >advances in technology can do to the ways in which we >acquire knowledge. > >The Sabo Bill, as proposed by Congressman Martin Sabo, >has a few loopholes as pointed out in some discussion >lists. Peter Suber has suggested some improvements. >With those improvements, if accepted by the US >Congress, the Bill will do a lot of good. > >Of course OA will not cover secondary services. > >Arun > > >--- Mailing List Manager <mailman(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> >wrote: > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:32:45 +0530 > > From: sathya <sathya(a)informindia.co.in> > > > > Hi Arun > > > > Our Feb 2004 editorial in U&I focuses on Martin > > Saboo's bill and its > > implications - "OAI and the Copyright Battle" > > http://www.informindia.co.in/u&i/Feb2004/u&i.htm > > > > A QUESTION(that haunts me), to Forum members. > > > > What should be the OAI's approach to "Indexes and > > database Aggregations"? > > For example, "Chemical Abstracts" and "the Journal > > of American Chemical > > Society" are different species of knowledge-animal, > > of entirely different > > value. > > Please note, a new separate Act is enacted recently > > by US Government to > > copyright protect databases, while Saboo's bill > > seeks to take-out federally > > funded (substantially) research publications out of > > copyright. > > > > Sathya > > -------------------------------------------------- > > N V Sathyanarayana > > Informatics > > www.informindia.co.in > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > > _______________________________________________ > > LIS-Forum mailing list > > LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in > > http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum > > > > > > > >___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! >Messenger - all new features - even more fun! >http://www.allnewmessenger.com >_______________________________________________ >LIS-Forum mailing list >LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum >_______________________________________________ >LIS-Forum mailing list >LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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Re: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access
by Mailing List Manager 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Date: 29 Jul 2004 06:36:58 -0000 From: afsar bukhari <bukhari_786(a)rediffmail.com> Dear Friends, I would like to share some of my views in connection with �Sabo Bill & Open Access� as pointed out by Mr. Sathya do chemists world over subscribe �..databases like CA will be superfluous. In present day environment, how many libraries are subscribing to Current Contents of ISI? CC gives alerts of recently published articles. When we have TOC email alerts of journals freely available, then, is it worth going for current contents? Both of them are almost achieving the same objective. It is also worth here to ask how many scientists are looking at CC Moreover, they are rigid in the sense that scientists should go to the library to refer them (because individuals cannot afford to subscribe to them at such prices). What I feel is, future of these services like CA, CC etc in Open Access Environment will depend on what unique features they are offering to the users compared to what is available freely. Regarding the copyright issue Again in the present model, authors of articles do not enjoy copyright. It is the publisher who retains it and makes profit at the cost of library�s displeasure. A primary fact, which should not be forgotten, is: Author publishes his/her work to increase its visibility that offers him recognition in the field. If the article has wider access, it will also stop re-inventing the wheel. And regarding the other apprehension raised by Mr. Sathya If a scientist desires to publish a book out of his research work, will any publisher be willing to pick it up. Yes I agree with this because Sabo bill clearly states Any Federal department or agency that enters into a funding agreement with any person for the performance of scientific research substantially funded by the Federal Government shall include in the agreement a provision that states that copyright protection under this title is not available for any work produced pursuant to such research under the agreement�. The implication of this would be, publisher would have to make the book freely available. In this connection my suggestion is, let the supporters of Open Access (Publishers or National Academies) come forward to accept such manuscripts and make it available in electronic format on net. If any body desires to have its printed version, let an on demand order� be placed with the publisher This is already into practice. At National Academic Press (www.nap.edu) most of the titles are freely available on the net in html or pdf format. And if you like, you can order a title in print at a reasonable price. Looking forward to others views which would enrich my further understanding Happy Reading & Warm regards S.A.A. Bukhari Librarian Shantha Biotechnics Pvt Ltd Medchal Hyderabad www.shanthabiotech.com library.factory(a)shanthabiotech.com On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 sathya wrote : >Question-1 > >Do Chemists world over subscribe to Arun's view that Databases like Chemical >Abstracts will become superfluous as OAI initiative matures covering a large >part of journal content? > >Question-2 > >Saboo bill is a threat to the academic freedom of the scientists which gives >them benefit of copyright for their published research works even though >money is spent by their respective institutes for doing research (be it >federal funding or others)? Are the scientist-authors willing to loose this >academic freedom? This issue which is at the heart of freedom of expression, >a very fundamental individual rights. If a scientist desires to publish a >book out of his research work, will any publisher be willing to pick it up >once the Saboo bill is passed as an act? > >Sathya >-------------------------------------------------- >N V Sathyanarayana >Chairman & Managing Director >Informatics (India) Ltd >Bangalore 560003, India >Phone : 91-80-23365940 >www.informindia.co.in >-------------------------------------------------- > >-----Original Message----- > From: Mailing List Manager [mailto:mailman@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] >Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 6:31 PM >To: lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access > >Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 07:26:27 +0100 (BST) > From: "[iso-8859-1] Subbiah Arunachalam" <subbiah_a(a)yahoo.com> > >Sathya asks how would champions of OA like to deal >with secondary services [sucha as Chemical Abstracts]? > >I have not yet read his editorial and I will wait till >the print version arrives, but in the meantime let me >do a bit of loud thinking. > >The main purpose of OA in general is to make primary >research findings available free to anyone who cares >to read them. Especially final versions of refereed >papers. This goal can be achieved two ways: OAP and >OAA. There are now more than a thousand OAP journals. >Many of them charge a fee upfront from the authors >(who in turn charge it to their funding agencies). >This model is the 'author pays' model of BMC and PLoS. >There are others [like Current Science and Pramana] >which do not charge any fee from the authors or >readers. They charge a subscription fee to print >subscribers and probably get grants from funding >agencies. > >In the OAA approach, authors deposit the full text of >their papers [preprints, final accepted versions of >papers, and postprints] in archives - either a central >archive such as arXiv or an institutional archive. As >the institutional archives are interoperable, to the >searcher it would appear as if all these papers are >located in one distant server; one does not have to >search several servers. What is important to note is >that OAA has adopted the key features of secondary >services such as the use of metadata tags to make a >search for relevant documents. > >If all researchers deposit their papers in >institutional archives [as recommended recently by the >UK House of Commons S&T Committee] anyone having a >decent Internet connection can access any of those >papers deposited anywhere in the world using metadata >[keywords, etc]. > >This is what the secondary services try to achieve >partially. Imagine that I access the print version of >Chemical Abstracts. Using keywords, I can locate >papers of my interest. If I use the electronic version >[SciFinder] I can not only find out papers of my >interest but often can navigate my way to the actual >documents themselves, as SciFinder has agreements with >many primary journals. > >In a perfect world, the secondary services will become >superfluous. My guess is if the archiving habit picks >up [as it has to a large extent in physics], many >scientists will find it less and less necessary to go >to secondary services. A clear example of what >advances in technology can do to the ways in which we >acquire knowledge. > >The Sabo Bill, as proposed by Congressman Martin Sabo, >has a few loopholes as pointed out in some discussion >lists. Peter Suber has suggested some improvements. >With those improvements, if accepted by the US >Congress, the Bill will do a lot of good. > >Of course OA will not cover secondary services. > >Arun > > >--- Mailing List Manager <mailman(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> >wrote: > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:32:45 +0530 > > From: sathya <sathya(a)informindia.co.in> > > > > Hi Arun > > > > Our Feb 2004 editorial in U&I focuses on Martin > > Saboo's bill and its > > implications - "OAI and the Copyright Battle" > > http://www.informindia.co.in/u&i/Feb2004/u&i.htm > > > > A QUESTION(that haunts me), to Forum members. > > > > What should be the OAI's approach to "Indexes and > > database Aggregations"? > > For example, "Chemical Abstracts" and "the Journal > > of American Chemical > > Society" are different species of knowledge-animal, > > of entirely different > > value. > > Please note, a new separate Act is enacted recently > > by US Government to > > copyright protect databases, while Saboo's bill > > seeks to take-out federally > > funded (substantially) research publications out of > > copyright. > > > > Sathya > > -------------------------------------------------- > > N V Sathyanarayana > > Informatics > > www.informindia.co.in > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > > _______________________________________________ > > LIS-Forum mailing list > > LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in > > http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum > > > > > > > >___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! >Messenger - all new features - even more fun! >http://www.allnewmessenger.com >_______________________________________________ >LIS-Forum mailing list >LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum >_______________________________________________ >LIS-Forum mailing list >LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in >http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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Re: [LIS-Forum] Help - reg.
by Mailing List Manager 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 07:31:04 +0100 (BST) From: "[iso-8859-1] suresh kumar" <nsureshfcri(a)yahoo.co.in> Dear members, It is a great question - What is that the Government is expected to do in the service matters of library professionls in autonomous bodies under various ministries( nearly 130 institutions under various Ministries). It is essential to appoint a high power committee by our professional associations like ILA, IASLIC etc to study the problems in detail and act/represent accordingly. I also invite your attention to the issues prevailing in many autonomous organisations regarding the service conditions/salary structure/promotion avenues/ library grading/post and scale upgradation in tune with the Govt of India order on 4th and 5th CPC recommendations etc of Employees in these organisation. As you are aware, these organisations are not yet referred to the purview of CAT in service matters and hence there are number of service matter grievances and representations are pending with Management for a long. It is a big question as to which forum these employees should approach to protect their legitimate claims. It would be a different position if the remedy is a private law remedy as per the wishes of the Management.Hence I request all members intervention, who is actively associated with professional associations like ILA,IASLIC in this matter. I would also like to hear the views of Office bearers of these associations in this regard and let us know what they are going to do for these poor professioanl collegues. thanks, Sureshkumar, Librarian,Fluid Control Research Institute( Govt. Of India), Palakkad- Kerala. nsureshfcri(a)yahoo.co.in --- Mailing List Manager <mailman(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> wrote: > Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:30:32 +0530 > From: rajesh chandrakar <rajesh(a)inflibnet.ac.in> > > Dear Professionals, > > This is biggest problem of our profession. Every > where, wherever you go > their is no clear cut guidelines for the practising > library professionals. > Because of this, our professionals are ruining their > career. Is any > association out there, who can take care pains of > our professional > colleagues? > > regards, > Rajesh >

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RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access
by Mailing List Manager 29 Jul '04

29 Jul '04

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 18:56:10 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Till recently, every commercial publisher of journals took away the copyright for the intellectual content produced by scientists supported often by public funds! Authors were asked to sign a form transferring copyright to the journal publisher! Is that what Sathya means by academic freedom? I thought it was taking undue advantage of scientists who have worked hard to produce some novel findings with the support of funding agencies. It is thanks to movements such as the OA movement authors are now able to retrieve copyright for their creations. Besides, OA advocates are not asking the journals to close down, despite the fact the major publishers earn profits far higher than most average companies in any other business, and the journal subscription prices are rising much faster than the general inflation rate. In fact, Stevan Harnad has written on this issue may be a hundred times. Reverting to copyright, there are many developments in recent years and I wish the LIS community invite experts such as Karim Shankar and Lawrence, both B'lore based, for detailed discussions. Indeed, Sathya could invite one of them to give the Informatics Annual Lecture. Or Dr Prasad of the Ranganathan Centre or the Karnataka Library Association could invite them for a discussion with LIS professionals. About scientists publishing books based on their research: Even now there are books which are merely collections of published articles. These are published by well-known publishers and I presume they do make a profit from such ventures. Most monographs today are based on published research and they are not the same as a collection of papers reporting the research. This situation will continue even in the open access regime. Besides, as Harnad keeps reminding us research papers are willingly given away by authors, whereas books are normally not. Arun -----Original Message----- From: sathya [mailto:sathya@informindia.co.in] Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 3:37 PM To: 'Mailing List Manager'; lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access Question-1 Do Chemists world over subscribe to Arun's view that Databases like Chemical Abstracts will become superfluous as OAI initiative matures covering a large part of journal content? Question-2 Saboo bill is a threat to the academic freedom of the scientists which gives them benefit of copyright for their published research works even though money is spent by their respective institutes for doing research (be it federal funding or others)? Are the scientist-authors willing to loose this academic freedom? This issue which is at the heart of freedom of expression, a very fundamental individual rights. If a scientist desires to publish a book out of his research work, will any publisher be willing to pick it up once the Saboo bill is passed as an act? Sathya -------------------------------------------------- N V Sathyanarayana Chairman & Managing Director Informatics (India) Ltd Bangalore 560003, India Phone : 91-80-23365940 www.informindia.co.in -------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Mailing List Manager [mailto:mailman@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 6:31 PM To: lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 07:26:27 +0100 (BST) From: "[iso-8859-1] Subbiah Arunachalam" <subbiah_a(a)yahoo.com> Sathya asks how would champions of OA like to deal with secondary services [sucha as Chemical Abstracts]? I have not yet read his editorial and I will wait till the print version arrives, but in the meantime let me do a bit of loud thinking. The main purpose of OA in general is to make primary research findings available free to anyone who cares to read them. Especially final versions of refereed papers. This goal can be achieved two ways: OAP and OAA. There are now more than a thousand OAP journals. Many of them charge a fee upfront from the authors (who in turn charge it to their funding agencies). This model is the 'author pays' model of BMC and PLoS. There are others [like Current Science and Pramana] which do not charge any fee from the authors or readers. They charge a subscription fee to print subscribers and probably get grants from funding agencies. In the OAA approach, authors deposit the full text of their papers [preprints, final accepted versions of papers, and postprints] in archives - either a central archive such as arXiv or an institutional archive. As the institutional archives are interoperable, to the searcher it would appear as if all these papers are located in one distant server; one does not have to search several servers. What is important to note is that OAA has adopted the key features of secondary services such as the use of metadata tags to make a search for relevant documents. If all researchers deposit their papers in institutional archives [as recommended recently by the UK House of Commons S&T Committee] anyone having a decent Internet connection can access any of those papers deposited anywhere in the world using metadata [keywords, etc]. This is what the secondary services try to achieve partially. Imagine that I access the print version of Chemical Abstracts. Using keywords, I can locate papers of my interest. If I use the electronic version [SciFinder] I can not only find out papers of my interest but often can navigate my way to the actual documents themselves, as SciFinder has agreements with many primary journals. In a perfect world, the secondary services will become superfluous. My guess is if the archiving habit picks up [as it has to a large extent in physics], many scientists will find it less and less necessary to go to secondary services. A clear example of what advances in technology can do to the ways in which we acquire knowledge. The Sabo Bill, as proposed by Congressman Martin Sabo, has a few loopholes as pointed out in some discussion lists. Peter Suber has suggested some improvements. With those improvements, if accepted by the US Congress, the Bill will do a lot of good. Of course OA will not cover secondary services. Arun --- Mailing List Manager <mailman(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> wrote: > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:32:45 +0530 > From: sathya <sathya(a)informindia.co.in> > > Hi Arun > > Our Feb 2004 editorial in U&I focuses on Martin > Saboo's bill and its > implications - "OAI and the Copyright Battle" > http://www.informindia.co.in/u&i/Feb2004/u&i.htm > > A QUESTION(that haunts me), to Forum members. > > What should be the OAI's approach to "Indexes and > database Aggregations"? > For example, "Chemical Abstracts" and "the Journal > of American Chemical > Society" are different species of knowledge-animal, > of entirely different > value. > Please note, a new separate Act is enacted recently > by US Government to > copyright protect databases, while Saboo's bill > seeks to take-out federally > funded (substantially) research publications out of > copyright. > > Sathya > -------------------------------------------------- > N V Sathyanarayana > Informatics > www.informindia.co.in > -------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > LIS-Forum mailing list > LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in > http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum > ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://www.allnewmessenger.com _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access
by Subbiah Arunachalam 28 Jul '04

28 Jul '04

Till recently, every commercial publisher of journals took away the copyright for the intellectual content produced by scientists supported often by public funds! Authors were asked to sign a form transferring copyright to the journal publisher! Is that what Sathya means by academic freedom? I thought it was taking undue advantage of scientists who have worked hard to produce some novel findings with the support of funding agencies. It is thanks to movements such as the OA movement authors are now able to retrieve copyright for their creations. Besides, OA advocates are not asking the journals to close down, despite the fact the major publishers earn profits far higher than most average companies in any other business, and the journal subscription prices are rising much faster than the general inflation rate. In fact, Stevan Harnad has written on this issue may be a hundred times. Reverting to copyright, there are many developments in recent years and I wish the LIS community invite experts such as Karim Shankar and Lawrence, both B'lore based, for detailed discussions. Indeed, Sathya could invite one of them to give the Informatics Annual Lecture. Or Dr Prasad of the Ranganathan Centre or the Karnataka Library Association could invite them for a discussion with LIS professionals. About scientists publishing books based on their research: Even now there are books which are merely collections of published articles. These are published by well-known publishers and I presume they do make a profit from such ventures. Most monographs today are based on published research and they are not the same as a collection of papers reporting the research. This situation will continue even in the open access regime. Besides, as Harnad keeps reminding us research papers are willingly given away by authors, whereas books are normally not. Arun -----Original Message----- From: sathya [mailto:sathya@informindia.co.in] Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 3:37 PM To: 'Mailing List Manager'; lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access Question-1 Do Chemists world over subscribe to Arun's view that Databases like Chemical Abstracts will become superfluous as OAI initiative matures covering a large part of journal content? Question-2 Saboo bill is a threat to the academic freedom of the scientists which gives them benefit of copyright for their published research works even though money is spent by their respective institutes for doing research (be it federal funding or others)? Are the scientist-authors willing to loose this academic freedom? This issue which is at the heart of freedom of expression, a very fundamental individual rights. If a scientist desires to publish a book out of his research work, will any publisher be willing to pick it up once the Saboo bill is passed as an act? Sathya -------------------------------------------------- N V Sathyanarayana Chairman & Managing Director Informatics (India) Ltd Bangalore 560003, India Phone : 91-80-23365940 www.informindia.co.in -------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Mailing List Manager [mailto:mailman@ncsi.iisc.ernet.in] Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 6:31 PM To: lis-forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in Subject: RE: [LIS-Forum] RE: The Sabo Bill and Open Access Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 07:26:27 +0100 (BST) From: "[iso-8859-1] Subbiah Arunachalam" <subbiah_a(a)yahoo.com> Sathya asks how would champions of OA like to deal with secondary services [sucha as Chemical Abstracts]? I have not yet read his editorial and I will wait till the print version arrives, but in the meantime let me do a bit of loud thinking. The main purpose of OA in general is to make primary research findings available free to anyone who cares to read them. Especially final versions of refereed papers. This goal can be achieved two ways: OAP and OAA. There are now more than a thousand OAP journals. Many of them charge a fee upfront from the authors (who in turn charge it to their funding agencies). This model is the 'author pays' model of BMC and PLoS. There are others [like Current Science and Pramana] which do not charge any fee from the authors or readers. They charge a subscription fee to print subscribers and probably get grants from funding agencies. In the OAA approach, authors deposit the full text of their papers [preprints, final accepted versions of papers, and postprints] in archives - either a central archive such as arXiv or an institutional archive. As the institutional archives are interoperable, to the searcher it would appear as if all these papers are located in one distant server; one does not have to search several servers. What is important to note is that OAA has adopted the key features of secondary services such as the use of metadata tags to make a search for relevant documents. If all researchers deposit their papers in institutional archives [as recommended recently by the UK House of Commons S&T Committee] anyone having a decent Internet connection can access any of those papers deposited anywhere in the world using metadata [keywords, etc]. This is what the secondary services try to achieve partially. Imagine that I access the print version of Chemical Abstracts. Using keywords, I can locate papers of my interest. If I use the electronic version [SciFinder] I can not only find out papers of my interest but often can navigate my way to the actual documents themselves, as SciFinder has agreements with many primary journals. In a perfect world, the secondary services will become superfluous. My guess is if the archiving habit picks up [as it has to a large extent in physics], many scientists will find it less and less necessary to go to secondary services. A clear example of what advances in technology can do to the ways in which we acquire knowledge. The Sabo Bill, as proposed by Congressman Martin Sabo, has a few loopholes as pointed out in some discussion lists. Peter Suber has suggested some improvements. With those improvements, if accepted by the US Congress, the Bill will do a lot of good. Of course OA will not cover secondary services. Arun --- Mailing List Manager <mailman(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> wrote: > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:32:45 +0530 > From: sathya <sathya(a)informindia.co.in> > > Hi Arun > > Our Feb 2004 editorial in U&I focuses on Martin > Saboo's bill and its > implications - "OAI and the Copyright Battle" > http://www.informindia.co.in/u&i/Feb2004/u&i.htm > > A QUESTION(that haunts me), to Forum members. > > What should be the OAI's approach to "Indexes and > database Aggregations"? > For example, "Chemical Abstracts" and "the Journal > of American Chemical > Society" are different species of knowledge-animal, > of entirely different > value. > Please note, a new separate Act is enacted recently > by US Government to > copyright protect databases, while Saboo's bill > seeks to take-out federally > funded (substantially) research publications out of > copyright. > > Sathya > -------------------------------------------------- > N V Sathyanarayana > Informatics > www.informindia.co.in > -------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > LIS-Forum mailing list > LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in > http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum > ___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://www.allnewmessenger.com _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum _______________________________________________ LIS-Forum mailing list LIS-Forum(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/mailman/listinfo/lis-forum

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Future of eprints software...
by Mailing List Manager 28 Jul '04

28 Jul '04

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 08:25:16 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam <arun(a)mssrf.res.in> Friends: Here is a brief report from Steve Hitchcock of the University of Southampton. Following an earlier notice to this list, an important meeting was held to consider the future of Eprints software. Putting Eprints Software into the User Community June 23, 2004, London, organised by JISC and the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at Southampton University. At this highly successful workshop that attracted over 100% of the booked delegates, invited users and stakeholders in Eprints software from around the world met to consider increased sharing and communications to ensure the continued sustainability and development of Eprints, the most widely used software for creating institutional archives. A report summarising the major proposals to emerge from the workshop, and highlighting areas for further investigation, is now available <http://opcit.eprints.org/jisc-eprints-user/summary-report.html> The full proceedings are linked from the original programme <http://opcit.eprints.org/jisc-eprints-user/>. All users of Eprints are invited to comment on the proposals, which are intended to bring forward actions from the workshop. Original notice <http://software.eprints.org/tech.php/2127.html> (include this url in tech mail only) <http://software.eprints.org/underground.php/323.html> (include this url in underground mail only). Steve Hitchcock IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK Email: sh94r(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3256 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865

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