The ClinMed NetPrints website has been active for about a year (http://clinmed.netprints.org/home.dtl)
As of Dec. 10/2000, 34 preprints have been posted. Via the link to PubMed that's provided, it's possible to check whether or articles with the same authorship and very similar titles have been published in journals included in PubMed's listings. I could identify three in this way: 1) clinmed/1999120016 (posted December 29, 1999) appears to be similar to an article published in BMJ 2000;321:20 (1 July) 2) clinmed/2000020012 (posted April 21, 2000) appears to be closely related to an article published in BMJ 2000;321:792-793 (30 September) 3) clinmed/2000030003v1 (posted April 6, 2000) appears to be closely related to an article published in J Pain Symptom Manage 2000 Nov;20(5):326-34 In addition: 4) clinmed/2000010010 (posted March 21, 2000) is the basis for a revised version published in a peer-reviewed electronic journal (one that's not yet included in PubMed's listings), Journal of Medical Internet Research (URL: http://www.jmir.org/2000/3/e14/) >From Dec 1999 through Apr 2000, 16 preprints were posted at the ClinMed NetPrints website. If it's assumed that it takes a minimum of about seven months for an article to be submitted, peer-reviewed, and published, then the publication rate for these preprints is, so far, at least 25%. This percentage could increase, but it seems unlikely that it will reach the 70% publication rate that's been estimated for preprints posted at the http://arxiv.org/ website (see Heath B. O'Connell, "Physicists Thriving with Paperless Publishing", http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0007040 - "The standard of work archived at Los Alamos is very high. 70% of papers are eventually published in journals and another 20% are in conference proceedings"). However, when I assessed the publication records of the authors of preprints posted at the ClinMed NetPrints website, almost all appeared to have some track record of publication in PubMed- listed journals. This raises a question about the evaluation of preprint servers: what criteria and standards should be used to assess their quality? It would be of some interest to use these same criteria and standards (whatever they should be) to evaluate other preprint servers (such as the Chemistry Preprint Server, at http://preprint.chemweb.com). Jim Till University of Toronto
