[Fwd: The great debate; the future of scientific literature]

Tue Sep 18 17:51:47 EDT 2001

This might be of interest to some of teh folks in our labs and database curation
jobs.

Thanks
Pankaj

Nature Publishing Group wrote:
> 
> New from Nature on the future of the electronic literature
> 
> As readers of Nature will know, there is currently considerable debate about many aspects of the future of the electronic literature, including ways to improve access to the scientific literature, proposals for making research papers free, and changing the application of copyright. We would like to draw your attention to new content relating to these issues on Nature's website and to a new publishing initiative by the Nature Publishing Group that will provide wider access on the web to literature published by the group.
> 
> 1. 18 September: update on Nature's web forum, "Future e-access to the primary literature" (http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/).
> 2. Nature's own view of the future of the electronic scientific literature, and the right and wrong ways forward: leading article.
> 3. Press release, 14 September: Nature Publishing Group participates in E-Biosci website
> 4. Feedback
> 
> 1. Update on Nature's web forum, "Future e-access to the primary literature"
> 
> The debate over the future of the e-literature involves many players, from the scientific community and institutions of higher education and research, to libraries and publishers. Nature has led the way in this debate by bringing the views of these groups before a broad audience, and highlighting the publishing challenges and opportunities. Nature's free web forum on "Future e-access to the primary literature" can be accessed at http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/ .
> 
> New contributions scheduled for publication this week include:
> 
> * "Healthy warning: 'This journal supports full text, tariff-free archives,'" by Colin Hopkins, Professor of Molecular Cell Biology, Imperial College, London, UK
> 
> * "Evolution of scholarly communication 'impossible to plan,'" by Andrew Odlyzko , Director, Digital Technology Center, University of Minnesota
> 
> * "A view from the news industry," by David Allen, Managing Director, International Press Telecommunications Council
> 
> * "A new value chain for scientific information," by Hans E. Roosendaal, Peter A. Th. M. Geurts and Paul van der Vet, University of Twente, The Netherlands
> 
> * "BioMed Central: a new business model for biomedical research publishing?" by Fiona Godlee, Peter Newmark, and Matthew Cockerill, BioMed Central Limited
> 
> * "When allegory replaces rational thought, science had better watch out," by Richard T. Kaser, Executive Director, US National Federation of Abstracting & Information Services
> 
> 2. Nature's own view of the future of the electronic scientific literature, and the right and wrong ways forward.
> 
> Nature's 6 September issue carries a special two-page editorial, "The future of the electronic scientific literature;" it is also available on free access in the web forum (see http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/opinion2.html). It outlines Nature's vision of a landscape of scientific communication that will be much more heterogeneous and diverse than the journals system with which we are familiar today. The article concludes that "Getting there will require novel forms of collaboration between publishers, databases, digital libraries and other stakeholders. It would be unwise to put all of one's eggs in the basket of any one economic or technological 'solution'. Diversity is the best bet."
> 
> 3. Nature Publishing Group participates in E-BioSci website
> 
> Nature’s publisher, the Nature Publishing Group, has signed an initial agreement with the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) confirming their commitment to introducing NPG journal content on to the E-BioSci central archive. (For a description of E-BioSci, see article by its director Les Grivell in Nature’s Web forum, and http://www.e-biosci.org).
> 
> The EMBO-led proposal for a single global online resource covering all areas of molecular biology, where data could be deposited and searched using a single procedure, should have a significant impact on the publication and availability of scientific research. The Nature Publishing Group sees this agreement as a first step in enhancing access across the scientific literature. Says Annette Thomas, Managing Director, Nature Publishing Group. "We look forward to working with E-BioSci to develop search and other functionality across the full text of papers published in NPG journals and those of other collaborating publishers".
> 
> Nature Publishing Group has initially agreed to provide abstracts and full links into Nature, the Nature Research and Review journals, and the NPG specialist journals. Construction and maintenance of the service will be funded initially by the European Commission for a period of three years, with subsequent funding and/or commercial development of the service to be evaluated during the course of the project.
> 
> 4. Feedback
> We encourage you to give us feedback on these issues, and to let us know what you feel are your, and your community's, major and most pressing needs with respect to the future of the scientific electronic literature. You may contact Declan Butler, the editor of the forum, directly on d.butler at nature.com
> 
> Forum address: http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/
> 
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-- 

**************************************************************
Pankaj Jaiswal, Ph.D.                                   
Postdoctoral Associate
Dept. of plant Breeding                             
Cornell University                                   
Ithaca, NY-14853, USA   

Tel:+1-607-255-3103 / Fax:+1-607-255-6683
E mail: pj37 at cornell.edu
http://www.gramene.org   http://ars-genome.cornell.edu/rice
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