Dear all:
I would like to contribute my two cents to this very puzzling thread
started by Stevan and continued by Tim.
I am afraid that one of the potential impacts of self-archiving is
being frequently, if not sistematically, overlooked. I have in mind
that open access allows the building of large digital libraries which
can be organized, networked and ranked by computer algorithms using
the most diverse criteria. Simplifying somewhat I would just call this
the "Google-effect". ResearchIndex gives a powerful example of the
possibilities, unfortunately only in the field of Computer Science,
hence it is useful only to a relatively small community. But it is a
wonderful proof of concept for the whole scientific
literature. CiteBase is another example, even though to a somewhat
smaller extent (in my view).
Can you imagine how wonderful and powerful it would be if we had an
open-access *complete* computer-digested digital library including all
the areas? Open, inclusive, for experimenting with new classification
and networking criteria. I myself do have some difficulty imagining
such a reality. But I am sure that I would very much like to
experiment the look-and-feel of such a library.
My claim is that the use of these "intelligent digital libraries"
built by search engines would add a new dimension to the research
activity. Can you imagine browsing today the World Wide Web without
Google or an equivalent search engine? That is the way we access the
Scientific Literature now! Tollgate barriers make it impossible to
integrate automatically the whole content adequately.
Could this idea be included somehow in Stevan's graphic? How? Maybe a
starting suggestion could be this one:
- Every researcher has his own mental network of research
papers. Let's represent his network under the limited access
model, which is the traditional case we are all used to.
- With self-archiving the computer builds a complete, much bigger
and much richer, even if sintatically limited, network of research
papers.
- With self-archiving the researcher can browse this computer-built
network to complete and adjust his previous mental network
obtaining a much richer one.
Cheers,
Imre Simon
http://www.ime.usp.br/~is/
Received on Sat Jan 11 2003 - 21:18:19 GMT