Re: How many papers are there in the OAI-compliant archives?

From: Richard Poynder <rich_p_at_DIAL.PIPEX.COM>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 07:47:47 -0000

I have an associated question: does anyone have any figures, or at least
an educated guess, as to how the self-archived papers break down by
subject area? In particular, is there perhaps an over-representation of
scientific and technical papers as compared with medical (if one can
make that distinction). I ask because I am curious as to whether the
Wolters Kluwer decision to sell Wolters Kluwer Academic Publishing
(scientific and technical) but retain their medical business (especially
Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins), and indeed invest more in their Health
division, is in any way related to self-archiving trends. Some have
speculated that their decision to sell was partly influenced by self
archiving, but this is just speculation at present (and I have as yet
not managed to speak to anyone at the company). Nevertheless, the
question arises: does WK's decision to sell scientific and technical but
retain medical suggest that there are some impediments to self-archiving
medical papers (be it only greater reluctance for researchers in those
areas to self-archive). I guess a similar sort of question arises over
the decision to sell the BertelsmannSpringer business: does it publish
in areas most threatened by self-archiving?

Any thoughts/facts appreciated.

Richard Poynder
Freelance Journalist
Phone: + 44 (0)191-386-0072
Mobile: 0793-202-4032
E-mail: richard.poynder_at_journalist.co.uk
Web: www.richardpoynder.com




-----Original Message-----
From: September 1998 American Scientist Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Imre
Simon
Sent: 30 October 2002 18:55
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: How many papers are there in the OAI-compliant archives?


Hi,

I am new to this list and please forgive me if my question has a well
known answer.

I would like to interest some people (and some Institutions too) in
Brazil to start self-archiving their work. It would be helpful to have
some statistics about the dimensions of the OAI-compliant archives and
at what rate are they growing? What is the proportion of the papers
whose full text is also available?

Do these statistics exist, and where are they? So far I couldn't find
them.

In case they do not exist, what would be the most interesting numbers
to measure? Don't you think that it would be wise to document the
evolution of the dimensions of the OAI-compliant library while
everybody is sweating to climb the mountain?

Thanks in advance,

Imre Simon
Received on Thu Oct 31 2002 - 07:47:47 GMT