RE: Electronic Preprints...

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

The best article I know of on the impact of the e-print on Physics
/astronomy literature, with regards to CITATION patterns is Gregory K.
Youngen, "Citation Patterns to Traditional and Electronic Preprints in the
Published Literature" College and Research Libraries, Sept. 1998, vol. 59
no. 5 pp. 448-456.  This paper "identifies the growing importance of
electronic preprints in the published literature (of physics and
astronomy)...." The data is 'dated" because of the normal time lag for
this stuff, but Youngen, who is the physics/astronomy librarian at the U
of I Urbana Champaign has updated the data in the article. When I spoke
with him in September of 98, he indicated that 6-7% of current year
citations in phys/astronomy are to e-prints (and rising!)

Chuck Hamaker

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Heather Joseph [SMTP:HJOSEPH@ascb.org]
> Sent:	Thursday, April 01, 1999 6:53 PM
> To:	liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject:	Electronic Preprints...
> 
> 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
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