[WEB4LIB] Weblication & Future Publication

[Eric Hellman]

The answer is discipline-specific. In physics, many journals have 
explicit policies permitting submission to e-print archives. This 
builds on a tradition in physics of circulating pre-prints.

In chemistry, the concept of a pre-print is considered odd.

In medicine, many journals have explicit policies prohibiting the 
practice of e-print archiving.

Copyright law has not really dealt with issues about what constitutes 
"publication". The current disputes in the music industry will set 
important precedents. A lawyer will advise caution.

Eric

At 9:50 AM -0700 5/5/00, Patricia F Anderson wrote:
>A group of our faculty are having a raging discussion about whether or not
>weblication precludes and prevents future print publication in a refereed
>journal.
>
>My suggestion was to perhaps only put portions of the idea or paper on the
>web, something meaty enough to attract attention, but keeping the full
>explanation for a print publication. I also am aware of the discussion
>which has been prominent in the biological, medical and life sciences
>lately with Harold Varmus' E-BIOMED (PubMedCentral) proposal:
>
>   http://www.nih.gov/about/director/pubmedcentral/pubmedcentral.htm
>   http://www.nih.gov/about/director/ebiomed/ebi.htm
>
>E-BIOMED proposed that participating journals would allow preprints of
>articles to be archived and publicly available prior to print publication,
>without penalty to the author. This, as you might imagine, has been seen
>as an inflammatory suggestion. The response from the Biochemical Society
>can be found at:
>
>Biochemical Society Response: http://www.biochemistry.org/ebiomedresp.htm
>ASM Response: http://www.asmusa.org/ebiomed.htm
>ASPP Response: http://aspp.org/ebiosci/original.htm
>Other Comments and Discussion:
>   http://www.nih.gov/about/director/ebiomed/comment.htm
>
>I've been looking for recent publications about whether or not a faculty
>member is taking his professional life in his hands if he makes his work
>independently available. I have found very little online.
>
>Science Tribune - Article - March 1997
>Scientific publishing : Paper or perish
>David Atherton1, David Steffen2, Sinai Yarus3
>http://www.tribunes.com/tribune/art97/yaru1.htm
>
>Harnad, Stevan.  SCHOLARLY SKYWRITING AND THE PREPUBLICATION CONTINUUM OF
>SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY
>http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad90.skywriting.html
>-- The Invisible hand of peer review.
>http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature2.html
>Exploit Interactive, Issue 5, April 7, 2000.
>
>I have been encouraging the faculty to contribute to such an archive, to
>encourage their journals to contribute, and to either support such an
>effort or to create their own dental literature prepublication archive,
>modeled on the E-BIOMED proposal or the Los Alamos project
>(http://xxx.lanl.gov).
>
>Do you know of other similar articles I could bring to their attention, OR
>anything which clarifies the copyright law with respect to this issue.
>
>THANKS IN ADVANCE!!
>
>Pat Anderson,
>UM Dentistry Library
>pfa at umich.edu

Eric Hellman
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