Re: Eprint versions and removals

From: David Goodman <dgoodman_at_PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 19:16:23 -0400

Steven, I find your position inconsistent.

You cannot say both that
> an archive is meant to be permanent.
and
> the author should have the right to remove a text if he wishes

Surely
> If someone makes a document public and publicly accessible o n an archive,

 then it is the responsibility of any organization claiming to be an "archive"
to archive it. By permitting removal at all you are saying that it is necessary for
some other organization to take the responsibility of archiving your
arch ive so the record remains available.

When Ramus writes
>>Who are you to judge how good the reason is,
>> what criteria would you use and why, and whatever the reason given,
He is correct that you have no right to set criteria; you should simply refus e in all cases--indeed you should design the system so removal is physically impossible. I suppose that is a sufficiently dispersed system this is in fact be the case, and when Ramus asks
>> how could you refuse to do what th

e author wants?
he should be aware that nothing once disclosed on the internet can in fact be assured of being made inaccessible. The physical world will not do what he wants it to do.

Dr. David Goodman
Princeton University Library
and
Palmer School of Library & Information Scie nce, Long Island University
dgoodman_at_princeton.edu
Received on Sat Jun 07 2003 - 00:16:23 BST