Dear Dr Vyasamoorthy, Right now most worthwhile papers are available as open access, either as preprints (throgh preprint servers such as arXiv and bioRxiv) or as postprints in institutional, national or global repositories or through open access journal. Citation databases such as Web of Science have started indexing preprints making them widely known. And then there is the ever dependable SciHub. I do not remember offhand the percent share of all papers and preprints that are availble as OA, but my colleagues Muthu Madhan and Subbiah Gunasekaran should be able to tell you. Rarely does one need to ask an author in a distant lab for a reprint. Occasionally though, I have requested authors (or friends) to send me reprints. With kind regards, Arun On Mon, 8 May 2023, 12:14 Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy, wrote:

A few decades ago requesting a copy of a scholarly article could be made to the author(s). The author would normally spare a copy from his quota of reprints or from his own file copy. This was a primary source in my days (I retired from active librarianship around 2000).

In fact ISI used to sell specialised Reprint Request Post cards - They used to contain auto-carbon peel off parts. The address could be peeled and pasted on To: page of the postcard. The reprint (bibliographical) info per se could be peeled off and pasted in your file for reference etc

Has this practice disappeared? Do authors not get reprints for personal distribution? Has the practice been banned by publishers ? Am I asking a "Rip Van Winkle" Question?

Thanks if anyone could respond!

Dr P Vyasamoorthy / 9490804278

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