Melinščak Zlodi, Iva.
(2004).
Eprint archives: revolution in accessing scientific information?.
In: 6. seminar Arhivi, knjižnice, muzeji: mogućnosti suradnje u okruženju globalne informacijske infrastrukture, 20. - 22. studeni, 2002., Rovinj.
Abstract
Scholarly publishing procedures in 21st century are still inhibited with patterns from "Gutenberg era". Publishing scientific article is an expensive and timeconsuming
process. Authors give away their rights without charge, but prices of scholarly journals and publishers’ incomes are rising. More and more libraries are unable to supply their users with all journal literature that their users need.
Although IT development has enabled more effective forms of disseminating scholarly content, new advantages are not yet fully used. Existing electronic journals and databases simply copy their printed counterparts, in most cases. The transfer to new media has not substantially transformed the structure of scientific communication.
In the course of last three years, new initiatives aiming to change current models of scientific communication have been launched (SPARC, Public Library of Science).
The most recent one is Budapest Open Access Initiative, launched in the year 2002 by Open Society Institute. These initiatives' objectives are: open access to all scholarly information, for everyone, as fast as and as low-cost as possible. Building a global distributed network of e-print archives, where authors could self-archive their research
findings, has been proposed as an easiest way to achieve this objectives.
Open Archive Initiative (OAI), started in 1999, offers a framework (based on Dublin Core Metadata Element Set) for solving the interoperability issue in such distributed
network.
There are many oppositions to proposed solution: mostly coming from commercial publishing companies. Scientists are slow in realizing advantages of new way of accessing scientific information, too. Still, there are several active e-print archives in different scientific disciplines. The most significant one is Los Alamos
preprint server arXiv (launched in 1991), which has became the most important place for information exchange in physics.
Role of the libraries in promoting open access has often been emphasized. All of the mentioned initiatives are suggesting that librarians should take responsibilities
to build, manage and promote eprint archives.
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