On 2 Dec 2008, at 15:47, Michael Eisen wrote: OF COURSE Elsevier can have objections to
libraries assisting individuals in self-archiving their work, because Elsevier does not want self archiving to succeed! No-one wants to split unnecessary hairs, but there does seem to be a genuine distinction to be drawn between author-self-archiving and institutional-systematic-downloading. These at least were the terms to which Karen Hunter referred: As our longstanding policy permits authors to voluntarily post their own author manuscripts to their personal website or institutional repository, we responded that we would not object to an author downloading this version. However, our broader policy prohibits systematic downloading or posting. Therefore, it is not permitted for IR managers or any other third party to download articles ... and post them. Discussion on the other side of the fence (the library side), seems to indicate that there is little enthusiasm anyway for this kind of "assistance" (in Michael's terms) or "systematic downloading" (Elsevier's). I think that the library position is that they have no resources available to do this work for the author, even if it were acceptable to the publisher. -- Les Carr