Re: Central site for IR

[Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com>]

I am not sure why this would be a good thing.

For searching? Actually, Google Scholar does quite a robust job 
of finding the different postings of papers.

For preservation? Generally it is better NOT to have articles in 
only one location--like, say, the NIH, which is run by government 
with huge deficits and no stable long-term vision, subject to the 
whims of whatever administration or Congress is in power at any 
particular time. (Not to mention its location in a city with 
perhaps the highest risk of cyber- or other terrorism of anyplace 
on Earth).

Although I think we have not sufficiently considered the problems 
raised by institutional repositories (tracking usage of 
distributed documents, keeping tabs on versioning, accuracy of 
post-prints in sensitive fields like medicine, etc.), the idea of 
having one central IR may pose even more difficulties than the 
system Dr. Harnad advocates.

Peter Banks
Banks Publishing
Publications Consulting and Services
pbanks@bankspub.com

On 7/28/06 7:27 PM, "Richard Feinman" <RFeinman@downstate.edu> wrote:

> Wouldn't it be good to have a central site for IR supported by grants or
> all the institutions that wanted to use it as a repository?
>
> Richard D. Feinman, Co-editor-in-chief
> Nutrition & Metabolism ( http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com  /home )