Re: EPrint Request Button

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:27:38 -0500

On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Klaus Graf <klausgraf_at_googlemail.com> wrote:

> This is nonsense (like the whole button). Deposits should'nt be
> transferred from one repository to another.

The word was not "transferred" but automatically exported (via
software) to (i.e., duplicated at) the author's new institution. For
OA purposes, one OAI-compliant IR host (with backup) is enough, of
course; but institutions may wish to host, showcase and archive their
researchers' opera omnia...

> At RWTH Aachen IR there is
> no possibility to deposit eprints from former affiliations. I do not
> appreciate this but the reason is the connection with the university
> bibliography.

Aachen will learn, as OA-era scholarly practices evolve.

> If an author dies should he be encouraged to export all his deposits
> to heaven or hell??

No: no further export necessary at that point unless the author has a
posthumous profession. The OA versions at the former institutions can
and should be preserved in perpetuo (especially once they become the
canonical version-of-record -- right now they are merely supplements
to the version-of-record) and that's enough.

And there's no author left posthumously to authorize emailing eprints
to requesters. But let's hope that by this time OA will have
prevailed, embargoes will be dead, and hence the need for the Button
will no longer be there.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Tue Feb 09 2010 - 21:28:18 GMT