Re: Archivangelism

From: Subbiah Arunachalam <subbiah_a_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 18:24:32 +0000

Dr David Spurrett has shown that if there is a will there is a
way! Setting up institutional archives is eventually the best - most
cost-effective - solution. All of us - scientists and scholars -
should work towards it and persuade our university administrators and
policymakers in governments and donor agencies to promote it.

Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]

> Iain Stevenson wrote:
>
>is> (a). Implicitly, the publication model of open-access and self-archiving
>is> reflects the publishing culture of Anglo-American STM research, well-funded
>is> with grants that include publication costs and I suspect also salaried
>is> research assistantsa nd post-docs to do the leg-work in archiving. In the
>is> tradition of social science and humanities research, typified by sole
>is> researchers with smallish (or no) grants, self-archiving probably isn't easily
>is> achieved, unless the institution where the worker is based provides, staffs and
>is> pays for a self-archiving system. And where does that leave the self-funded
>is> independent scholar who is still a feature of many of the soft-sciences?
>
> I have to disagree. As a researcher in a humanities department, with limited
> grants, no salaried assistants and no postdocs, I've found no serious obstacles
> to self-archiving. The software (I have deposited papers in two different archives
> both of them running eprints) is easy to use, registration simple and clear, and
> the process of archiving a paper takes very little time.
>
> (I'm 'lucky' to work in the philosophy of science and cognitive science, both of
> which have eprints archives, but I'm presently agitating/archivangelising for
> my university to set up an institutional archive.)
>
> David Spurrett
Received on Sat Jan 10 2004 - 18:24:32 GMT