Re: Electronic archiving

["Dennis Auld" <dennisauld@hotmail.com>]

Peter, you express items here that are significant issues to be addressed.
I am not sure if you know of the association ASIDIC? I am program chair
for the next meeting, which will be held in San Diego about March 14-16,
1999 (Dates close but not confirmed yet) My program is about content
issues for the 21st century, and follows up on essentially the same theme
ASIDIC just did in Toronto on Spet. 27-29. My question here is would you
be available, if everything comes together appropriately, to keynote at
the March meeting essentially on what you have addressed in this note?
 

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Peter B. Boyce" <pboyce@aas.org>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Electronic archiving
Date: Thu,  8 Oct 1998 19:01:34 EDT

Pardon me if I chime in here to add some thoughts based upon our
experience in astronomy.

The electronic versions of all dual-version journals are diverging rapidly
from the paper version. In astronomy we have color plates on the Web and
B&W in print -- for cost reasons, since authors pay the color costs.  We
have video clips, we have machine readable data tables which do not even
appear in print any more, and the list is growing.  What with the
hyperlinks to references and citations which provide immediacy to the
information web, of which the journal is just a part, archiving in paper
is not adequate, even now.  The trend to electronic-only features is
accelerating. In another year, saving the paper will not be considered by
anyone to be an adequate archival strategy, even as a backup. Let's give
up talking about this now.

Don't take this wrong, but libraries can physically not maintain an
electronic archive for all their journals. An electronic journal is not a
collection of individual articles any more.  It is a whole complex system
of files, software, and protocols -- which are different for each
publisher.  One year of our Astrophysical Journal comprises about 60
GBytes in over 250,000 files, and a multitude of scripts and programs, all
of which are needed to have the journal function correctly and completely.

[SNIP]


___________________________________________________
Dr. Peter B. Boyce, Chercheur Associe, 
Centre Donnees de astronomique de Strasbourg, France
               --  boyce@cdsxb6.u-strasbg.fr
             
and Senior Consultant for Electronic Publishing              
American Astronomical Society
              --   pboyce@aas.org    --  http:www.aas.org/~pboyce
	



Dennis Auld
Senior Consultant, PsycINFO
202-216-7611
202-218-3987  fax
dennisauld@hotmail.com
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