27-10-2012, 01:41 PM
New Initiatives for Electronic Scholarly Publishing: Academic Information Sources on the Internet
ABSTRACT
This paper will trace the evolution of scholarly communication from the 17th century up to electronic journals, e-prints,
e-scripts, electronic theses and dissertations and other digital collections of grey literature that emerge, with different degrees
of acceptance in several disciplines, in the context of the new publishing models of the present day. The open access or
archiving/depositing of electronic copies of scientific and scholarly research papers, theses and dissertations and other
academic materials into networked servers, aims to ensure the widest possible dissemination of their contents by making them
freely available on the public Internet, facilitating full use by readers without financial, legal or technical barriers, other then
those related with gaining access to the Internet itself. The free and unrestricted online availability of this literature gives
readers an opportunity to find and make use of relevant literature for the advancement of science and technology. From the
point of view of authors, open archiving brings increased visibility and widens the readership and impact of their research
work. For researchers in poorly resourced organizations and/or countries, access to this open archive material has great
potential value, as it facilitates the retrieval of research results through the Internet. At the same time, it also allows scientists
in these organizations/countries to participate in the development of the global knowledge base. The paper will outline the
strategic factors that impact on the acceptance of these scholarly materials, available through ‘open access or archiving/
depositing’. Several international initiatives aiming at the creation of a global network of cross-searchable research materials
are underway. Some of the more relevant ones will be reviewed. The impact that the availability of these novel scholarly
materials is having, on changing roles and responsibilities of information managers, will also be highlighted.