Dear all,
Difficulties in determining whether a particular document has been
"published" are something we're all familiar with. Even when copies of a
report have been circulated quite widely, its official status may still be
"unpublished". The problem usually arises with reports in the area of "grey
literature", but a recent example shows that it can extend even to
apparently offical EUR-OP publications.
The report EUR 20057 'Land Transport and Marine Technologies' contains
synopses of research projects in that field. It is a priced publication
bearing all the usual markings of a EUR-OP publication - i.e. the EUR-OP
imprint, ISBN, catalogue number, etc. 800 copies of the publication were
distributed in early June at a DG Research conference on sustainable
transport technologies. But two months later, anyone trying to purchase a
copy is out of luck because, according to EUR-OP, the report has not yet
been officially published. It transpires that the copies for distribution
were delivered by the printers direct to the conference outside the usual
EUR-OP publication channels. So, no matter that hundreds of copies of the
report are now in circulation, the publisher says that it does not
officially exist yet.
Perhaps such distortions of traditional publishing arrangements are not
really uncommon at all. Has anyone else encountered similarly confusing
situations?
Regards,
Chris
Chris Lamb
CORDIS
Brussels
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