Date: 29 Jul 2004 06:36:58 -0000 From: afsar bukhari 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@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@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"

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 wrote: > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 19:32:45 +0530

...

From: sathya

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 --------------------------------------------------

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