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> Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 09:52:40 +1000 (EST)
> From: Giles S Martin <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: "Archiving" e-journals (fwd)
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc: Thomas Krichel <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]
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> Both copyright law and patent law are intended to serve two purposes:
>
> (1) To ensure that writers and inventors receive a reward for their
> efforts in creating literary works or inventions.
>
> (2) To ensure that others benefit from the literary works or inventions
> becoming publicly available.
>
> If the purpose was only to reward writers and inventors, then both
> cupyright and patents would have unlimited lives -- but they don't,
> because there is a balance between the rights of the owners of the
> intellectual property and the rights of others.
>
> Unfortunately, electronic publications haven't been around long enough to
> enable us to preserve this balance. But already we can see that there
> are problems with people publishing material for a limited time, and then
> withdrawing or revising their publication.
>
> In the print world, it's a bit like us not having a copy of the First
> Quarto of Hamlet, because it had been withdrawn in favour of the Second
> Quarto, and no copies remained. Or like us not having the first versions
> of Bruckner's symphonies, because he had revised them in favour or
> revised versions.
>
> It could be more serious that that. If you have read George Orwell's
> _Nineteen_Eighty_Four_, you will remember that Winston Smith's job was to
> revise history. If in this electronic world, there is only one copy of
> historical source documents, still under the control of the creators,
> then as political fashions change, they can be revised -- just as the
> Chinese Government has edited historical pictures, to remove Lin Biao
> from the side of Mao Zedong.
>
> So libraries ought to take steps to preserve the historical, literary and
> cultural record, even after the creators have revised it or lost interest
> in it. It doesn't need to be done in every academic library around the
> world, but at the very least there should be some kind of coordinated
> effort to preserve everything of potential significance in at least three
> places around the world, apart from the original site.
>
> Giles
>
> #### ## Giles Martin
> ####### #### Quality Control Section
> ################# University of Newcastle Libraries
> #################### New South Wales, Australia
> ###################* E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> ##### ## ### Phone: +61 49 215 828 (International)
> Fax: +61 49 215 833 (International)
> ##
> The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together
> -- All's Well That Ends Well, IV.iii.98-99
I am glad to see Giles Martin comments, as it is the first time I
have seen the concept of "editions" and verifiable information
talked about in the context of ejournals. I have been puzzled, and
wondering if I was missing some element in the structure of the pre-
print/ejournal world.
The research and academic process is based on everyone in that process
knowing that when they are talking about an experiment or a theory,
that they are referring to the same thing.
How can this happen if one researcher is basing work or comments on
the 1st February version of a paper, and is in discussion with another
who is basing their views on the 6th February revision but without the
chance to see the 1st February version, or perhaps even know that
the previous version existed. > > On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Thomas Krichel
wrote: >
> > I think we will have to get accustomed to the fact that things on
> > the internet are only available as long as the holder of write access
> > to the disk will allow. The uncertainties over copyright adds to the
> > instablity of the environment.
> >
> > In Economics, we see the birth of the postprint. A quite famous
> > professor has made available over 20 PDF papers, most of them from
> > the top journals (in versions immediately before the formal
> > publication), on his homepage. If the publishers find out,
> > he may be in for some trouble. And it would be worse if there were
> > a bunch of libraries that copied the PDF in the meantime :-)
> Mary E. Flynn [log in to unmask]
Assistant Librarian
Agriculture and Biological Sciences
University College Dublin
Belfield Dublin 4 Ireland Tel.: +353 1 7067541
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