Electronic Preprints...

["Heather Joseph" <HJOSEPH@ascb.org>]

I don't know if you saw the article by Eliot Marshall in Science two weeks
ago, about the NIH's proposal to create a large scale electronic preprint
server, but it's an interesting proposition (spearheaded by David Lipman
and Pat Brown). What are others' impressions of how electronic preprints
have affected e-journals in fields such as astronomy and physics. I've
been doing some catch-up reading (I read Bob Hanisch's article on
incorporating preprints into a e-pub system, some of Ginsparg's
publications, an articel by Harry Payne on e-prints, some info on the JCP
"CoPrint" experiment, and Boyce's excellent paper from the INET meeting,
etc.)

My initial reaction to the NIH idea is that there is a definite need for
this type of service, and that in the best case scenario, we end up with
some distributed e-print servers that act as the first layer for rapid
dissemination for science, and that the e-journals continue to play their
role as the archival validators of the state of the science.

I'd love to be able to hear what some of the impressions of the physics
and astronomy communities have been and how preprints have affected the
journals in these fields. I believe that the biology community is in a
similiar position to where the astronomy community was about five years
ago, and any chance to help avoid pitfalls and take advantage of lessons
learned will be helpful.

--------------------------------------
Heather Dalterio Joseph
Director of Publishing
ASCB
9650 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-571-1857
hjoseph@ascb.org