On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Albert Henderson wrote: > In short, there is no need for self-archiving refereed > articles, except perhaps as an author's way of > responding to requests for "reprints." > > ...There is no chance that _all_ > authors can be coaxed into 'archiving' _all_ their > papers in an orderly fashion. Unruly contributions, > including unrefereed drafts and quackery, will be the > norm. More often, great lacunae in what we like to call > the scientific record will be an intractable problem. > The researcher who depends on author 'archives' will > suffer.
Let those researchers who are lucky enough to be at institutions that can afford to pay for library access to what they need continue to access the refereed journal literature that way. But for the rest of us, can we just go ahead with this needless process of responding to requests for "eprints," be it ever so unruly? And coaxing others, be they ever so intractable, to fill the lacunae...? [On the subject of suffering, please see the thread: "Let Them Eat Cake..." (M. Antoinette) http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1525.html ] Stevan Harnad NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html or http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html You may join the list at the amsci site. Discussion can be posted to: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org