The operational release of the Eprints archive-creating software is now
down-loadable from http://www.eprints.org

The eprints.org software will create Eprints Archives that
are interoperable and compliant with the current Open Archives protocol.
The software is free, uses only free software, and can be installed
and maintained easily. It is modular, and written to be easily upgraded
with each upgrade of the Open Archives protocol:
http://www.openarchives.org

All Eprint Archives created with the eprints.org software are fully
interoperable, and can be registered as Open Archive Data Providers:
http://www.openarchives.org/sfc/sfc_archives.htm

This means that their contents can then in turn all be harvested, jointly
indexed, and jointly searched with all the other Eprint Archives
through Open Archive Service Providers
<http://www.openarchives.org/sfc/sfc_archives.htm>
such as
http://arc.cs.odu.edu

All Eprints can also be citation-interlinked:
http://opcit.eprints.org
so that the research literature can be navigated by citation. It will
also be possible to monitor research impact in powerful new ways,
once the eprints are up there:
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.citation.htm

The Eprints software was expressly designed so that universities and
research institutions worldwide can now immediately create their own
Open Archives, in which their researchers in all disciplines can
(immediately) self-archive their research -- both pre-refereeing
preprints and refereed postprints.
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Tp/1-Anomalous-Picture/sld001.htm
http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Tp/2-Resolving-the-Anomaly/sld001.htm

As soon as universities create their own Eprint Archives and their
researchers self-archive their papers in them, the world's refereed
research literature will be freed from all its current needless
access-barriers and impact-barriers.

    Footnote: HISTORY IS WATCHING. The means of freeing the entire
    refereed research literature (within a matter of days, in
    principle!) is now within the reach of the world research
    community. If you have a published paper of your own that has not
    reached its full potential readership, if there is a published
    paper by someone else that you or your university cannot afford to
    access, or cannot access immediately, or if your university has a
    "serials crisis" preventing its researchers from accessing the
    entire refereed research corpus -- AND you have NOT self-archived
    your own papers -- then, as of now, you have only yourself to blame
    (and history will be the judge, in hindsight)!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad                     [log in to unmask]
Professor of Cognitive Science    [log in to unmask]
Department of Electronics and     phone: +44 23-80 592-582
             Computer Science     fax:   +44 23-80 592-865
University of Southampton         http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Highfield, Southampton            http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM

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):

    http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html

You may join the list at the site above.

Discussion can be posted to:

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