If there is a "discoverability" problem, then IRs, and improving their
meta-data and interoperability are the answer. There is a need for people
with good programming and good information science skills to work on
improving the software that IRs run. Of course both of the major systems
(EPrints and DSpace) are open source, so all that's needed to get involved is
a willingness to do so. If and when IRs are better populated then it is
highly likely that searching and browsing (by whatever route) will return IRs
high in the set of results. But this requires IRs to be populated, which
requires mandates.
The ad-hoc individual web-page deposit of papers by CS academics does indeed
have a discoverability problem, not in that they won't show up in searches,
but that they may well show up too far down the search rank to be useful.
Depositing papers in IRs instead of on personal web pages (which can then
link to the IR) is the ansewr to this discoverability problem.
By all means get involved with helping improve the functionality of EPrints
or DSpace, but discussion of the minutiae of their operation is not the
purpose of this list. This list is dedicated to discussion of how to achieve
OA at a policy level. Sometimes the details of IR software, such as the "Fair
Use Button" are relevant here, but on thew whole those details should, IMO,
be left to technical discussion lists about the specific IR software and
harvesters.
--
*E-mail*a.a.adams_at_rdg.ac.uk******** Dr Andrew A Adams
**snail*27 Westerham Walk********** School of Systems Engineering
***mail*Reading RG2 0BA, UK******** The University of Reading
****Tel*+44-118-378-6997*********** Reading, United Kingdom
**http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~sis00aaa/**
Received on Sat Jul 21 2007 - 12:14:49 BST