>Dear All,
>
>One of our information scientists has just been discussing an issue in
>relation to electronic publication dates against the print publication date,
>and how this affects the patents arena.
>
>In the past, we have accepted the date that a journal issue was received by
>the British Library as the date it was publicly available. The publication
>of issues online before the release/production of the print obviously
>impacts on this.
>
>The easiest way around this is to look on a publisher's website to see when
>the article was made available online. A quick look has shown that
>ScienceDirect states when articles became available online, as does Springer
>and Wiley. HighWire and ingenta do not appear to hold this information. I
>assume that this is because they are aggregators, and may not be the sole
>host for an online title.
>
>Does anyone know if any work is being carried out to store and maintain this
>information? The discussion I had suggested that this is not an immediate
>problem, but is something which could "go off" at any time!
>
>Can any publishers on the list comment on this as well?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Phillip
Phillip is absolutely correct - this could turn out to be a crucial matter
in the future, and one that publishers ought to be addressing. it doesn't
just apply to them, though. Academics also need to record when their work
in progress is first posted on a Web site - I wonder how many of them do?
Professor Charles Oppenheim
Dept of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU
Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509-223053
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