Two key objections to IEGs at the time were: 1. Their exclusive nature. They were available only to a small group of laboratories. 2. The extremely cumbersome method of distribution and inconvenient format of the material. (They were one-sided photocopies of typescript.) The current self-archiving and related proposals, in any of their variants, are obviously free of both these objections.
In the group that I remember (I was just beginning as a graduate student at the time), essentially all of the papers were fairly soon published in essentially unaltered form. This is not surprising when it is remembered that membership was limited to senior investigators at major institutions. The objections of journal publishers were taken perhaps a little more seriously at a time when major libraries could afford all necessary journals, and individual scientists the key titles. In retrospect, they certainly seem self-serving. Incidentally, has anyone kept an archive of any of the groups? A few items from them were (improperly, of course) cited in the literature and are sometimes requested, and I know of no source. With any of the current proposals, this subsequent loss of access would not recur. -- Dr. David Goodman Biology Librarian, and Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force Princeton University Library dgood...@princeton.edu http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/ phone: 609-258-3235 fax: 609-258-2627