Scholar-Based Innovations in Publishing. Part I: individual and institutional initiatives

Citation

McKiernan, G. (2003), "Scholar-Based Innovations in Publishing. Part I: individual and institutional initiatives", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920baf.005

Scholar-Based Innovations in Publishing. Part I: individual and institutional initiatives

Gerry McKiernan

Scholar-Based Innovations in Publishing. Part I: individual and institutional initiatives

• •

  We scientists can exercise control of our journals. We can transform them from commercial commodities back to instruments of service to education and research. When we are in control, we fulfill our responsibility to ourselves, to society, to our institutions, and to our colleagues throughout the world (Rosenzweig, 2001, p. 1).

In 1977, Michael L. Rosenzweig, a Professor with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, was appointed to the editorial board of the Ecological Society of America, and has served as a scientific editor ever since. From 1983-1986, he was an editor of Paleobiology, and since 1993, has been Editor of the Israel Journal of Zoology. In the mid-1980s, Rosenzweig founded Evolutionary Ecology, a scholarly publication that would become "a leading international journal for all aspects of evolutionary ecology". He continued as its Editor-in-chief until "its prices climbed too high. Then he and his wife Carole founded a publishing house, Evolutionary Ecology Ltd and a new journal, Evolutionary Ecology Research [EER], of which he is the publisher and Editor-in-chief. They operate EER [a professional scientific journal focusing on the overlap between ecology and evolution] according to their belief that an academic publisher has to do more than make a profit; it has the responsibility to disseminate information as widely and inexpensively as possible" (University of Arizona, 2001).

Evolutionary Ecology Research was formally announced in November 1998 as a partner of the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an initiative of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) that aims to "create a more competitive scholarly communication marketplace in which prices are lower, quality is enhanced, and publisher responsiveness to market needs is rewarded" (SPARC, 1998).

Launched in June 1998, SPARC seeks to serve "as a catalyst for action, helping to create systems that expand information dissemination and use in a networked digital environment while responding to the needs of scholars and academe" (SPARC, 2002a). Its agenda focuses on "enhancing broad and cost-effective access to peer-reviewed scholarship" via three broad strategies:

1. 1.

   incubation of competitive alternatives to current high-priced commercial journals and digital aggregations;

2. 2.

   public advocacy of fundamental changes in the system and the culture of scholarly communication; and

3. 3.

   education campaigns aimed at enhancing awareness of scholarly communication issues and supporting expanded institutional and scholarly community roles in and control over the scholarly communication process.

In late July 2002, SPARC released a major White Paper on the critical role of institutional repositories in reforming scholarly communication (Crow, 2002). Defined as "digital collections that capture and preserve the intellectual output of university communities", institutional repositories are viewed as a "natural extension of an academic institution's role as a generator of primary research" (SPARC, 2002b). As documented, institutional repositories can serve as "an immediate and valuable complement to the existing scholarly publishing model" that builds on the "growing grassroots faculty practice of self-posting research online" (Crow, 2002, p. 4) (see also Johnson, 2002).

Individual

arXiv.org

One of the acknowledged leaders of the self-archiving movement is Paul Ginsparg, formerly a particle physicist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico. More than a decade ago, Ginsparg developed arXiv.org, an Internet-based service that enabled authors to store and access pre-publication versions of their work (preprints) from a central location (Taubes, 1993, p. 1246). This computer-based system not only automated the process by which authors could submit electronic preprints, but allowed these researchers, and others, to search and retrieve the documents themselves as well (see Figure 1). As observed by Ginsparg, the technological advances of the Internet and the lack of initiative on the part of conventional journal publishers rendered the development of the arXiv.org e-print archive as "an accident waiting to happen" (Ginsparg, 1994, pp. 390-3). In addition to providing faster access to information for a wider community, the e-print service offers desktop access to extensive full-text collections for scientists who lack well-stocked libraries or personal subscriptions to journals, notably researchers in developing countries. Indeed, while the e-print service was not planned as an alternative to scientific periodicals, it has come to function as an electronic journal for many users (Hurd, 1996, p. 71).

Figure 1 A listing of the subject groups within the "physics" collection of the arXiv.org e-print archive

Currently, the arXiv.org e-print archive (xxx.arXiv.cornell.edu) consists of four major collections:

1. 1.

   physics;

2. 2.

   mathematics;

3. 3.

   nonlinear sciences;

4. 4.

   computer science.

In accessing the arXiv.org e-print archive, the user is provided with a variety of viewing and search options. For a given subject group within one of the collections, the user can browse records for all newly submitted contributions to the archive ("new") or only the associated citations for recent submissions ("recent"). For either display, the standard citation includes the title of the document, its author(s), format, and in some cases, an alternative Internet address for the item or its associated appendices, and a journal reference citation for a formally published document. Among the search options, a user can search one or more subject groupings within a collection, limit a search by year(s), or search by author, title, and abstract text separately, or in combination, (McKiernan, 2000).

The arXiv.org e-print service provides explicit and detailed instructions to facilitate contributions. Submissions must be in one of several specific formats, namely TeX, LaTeX, AMSTeX, AMSLaTex, HTML+PNG/GIF, PDF, PostScript, or Mathematica Notebooks. The preferred formats are TeX, LaTex, or HTML+PNG/GIF, as these are open formats, and are considered to be highly portable and expected to be stable over time.

As of 31 December 2002, there have been more than 220,000 submissions to arXiv.org since its establishment in August 1991. Currently, access is provided from 18 sites worldwide, including two based in the USA. In addition to the original Los Alamos National Laboratory site, there is now a site at Cornell University, where Paul Ginsparg joined the faculty in Fall 2001 (Cornell University, 2002). In a recent 12-month period (October 2001 – September 2002), the arXiv.org site was accessed on average more than 3 million times each month. In addition to its native mode interface, arXiv.org can also be searched through such Open Archives Initiative "service providers" as ARC, "a cross archive search service" (arc.cs.odu.edu/), my.OAI (www.myoai.com), OAIster (oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/), the PrePRINT Network (preprints.osti.gov), and Scirus (www.scirus.com), "the most comprehensive science-specific search engine available on the Internet" (Open Archives Initiative, 2002).

Since its creation, the arXiv.org e-print service has revolutionized scholarly communication and inspired the development of alternatives to conventional and electronic journal publication in a variety of other disciplines. In addition to serving the needs of its constituencies, the arXiv.org e-print service has also served as "… a model of rapid, direct and relatively cheap interaction in which researchers participate as producers, distributors and users of information" (Luzi, 1998, p. 30). In Fall 2002, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Ginsparg a fellowship in recognition of the significance of his initiative. In his biographical profile, the foundation noted that Ginsparg had "… transformed the way physics gets done – challenging conventional standards for review and communication of research and thereby changing the speed and mode of dissemination of scientific advances" (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2002).

arXiv.org is currently funded by a grant to Cornell University from the National Science Foundation (US).

Cogprints

One of the strongest supporters of the arXiv.org initiative, and among the most vocal advocates of author "self-archiving", is Steven Harnad, Professor of Cognitive Science in the Department of Electronics and Computer Science, at the University of Southampton. In addition to founding and editing Psycoloquy (psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk), the first refereed electronic journal in psychology, Harnad is founder and director of CogPrints (cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk), a "cognitive sciences 'e-print server' … for 'self-archiving' papers in any area of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics, and … [ ] many areas of Computer Science" (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 The CogPrints homepage showing various search, browse and other access options

In addition to these subject areas, CogPrints includes the following disciplines within its scope:

• •

  Computer science (e.g. artificial intelligence, robotics, vision, learning, speech, neural networks).

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  Philosophy (e.g. mind, language, knowledge, science, logic).

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  Biology (e.g. ethology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, behavioral genetics, evolutionary theory).

• •

  Medicine (e.g. psychiatry, neurology, human genetics, imaging).

• •

  Anthropology (e.g. primatology, cognitive ethnology, archeology, paleontology).

Launched in August 1997, CogPrints is presently implemented using the EPrints2 archive-creating software (www.eprints.org); Eprints2 software is compliant with the Open Archives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH 2.0) (www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html), a protocol that provides "an application-independent interoperability framework based on metadata harvesting" (Lagoze et al., 2002) (see also McKiernan, in press). CogPrints can be browsed by top-level (e.g. "Psychology") and subordinate categories (e.g. "Clinical Psychology", "Developmental Psychology", "Social Psychology"). For each of these categories, the number of e-prints currently assigned to the category is indicated (e.g. "Psychology (878)", "Clinical Psychology (65)"). Users can also display items added to the archive in the past week ("Latest Additions").

CogPrints provides two broad types of searching: "Simple" and "Advanced". In a "Simple" search, users can search by title, abstract, or keyword(s) concurrently, and/or by author, and/or by publication year. A search statement can be limited using a Boolean function ("Match all, in any order" and "Match any") or by publication year(s). Search results can be displayed in order by the first author's last name, alphabetically by title, or in chronological ("by year (oldest first)") or reverse chronological ("by year (most recent first)") order. In the "Advanced" search, the user can separately search by title keyword, author, abstract keyword, or general keyword, using the identical Boolean functions provided in a "Simple" search. In addition, by selecting from a drop-down menu, a search can be limited to one or more "Subject Categories". A search can also be limited by type of publication (e.g. "Book Chapter", "Conference Paper", "Preprint", "Thesis", etc.) and/or conference title, author departmental affiliation, editor name(s), or institution. In addition, a search can be restricted to items that are "Unpublished", "In Press", or "Published", and/or to those that are refereed or non-refereed. Identical display options are available in a "Simple" search.

CogPrints can also be searched using the interfaces of select Open Access Initiative Service Providers (www.openarchives.org/service/listproviders.html), such as ARC and OAIster (see above), and by the search engine, Google (for example: "site:cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk and cognition").

CogPrints not only provides guidance on browsing and searching, but also clear instruction on submitting contributions and registering; registration is required to submit and to receive e-mail alerts. It offers detailed directions, and links to appropriate forms, are provided for depositing and editing submissions. A variety of file formats or sources can be uploaded (e.g. HTML, PDF, .tar) (CogPrints, n.d.). With the incorporation of ParaCite (paracite.eprints.org) within the CogPrints system, users are provided with a feature that will attempt to locate a full-text version for cited documents ("SEEK").

Since its launch, CogPrints has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils.

RePEc: an open library for economics

RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) (repec.org) is "a collaborative effort of over 100 volunteers in 30 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics" (Cruz and Krichel, 2000; McKiernan, 2000). RePEc provides access to one of the largest sources of freely downloadable scientific e-prints in the world, second only to arXiv.org (Krichel, 2002; McKiernan, 2001). At the core of RePEc is a decentralized database of working papers, journal articles, and software components. As of 31 December 2002, RePEc contained records for more than 177,000 items of interest, with more than half of these (86,000) available as full text. Within RePEc, there are currently more than 110,000 working papers, 67,000 articles, 850 software components, and 2,500 author, and 6,600 institutional, contact listings.

Unlike the centralized model exemplified by arXiv.org (McKiernan, 2000), RePEc has been developed within the framework of the Open Library, a collaborative framework for the supply of metadata about documents (Krichel, 2000, 2001). To represent its collections, RePEc makes use of a customized metadata framework named the Research Documents Information Format (ReDIF) (Krichel et al., n.d.). From the RePEc perspective, a discipline can be viewed as a set of four basic elements that are related to each other: "paper", "collection", "person", and "institution". Using a distinct ReDIF template (ideas.uqam.ca/ideas/templates.html) for each of these elements, RePEc offers a centralized catalog of records for working papers, journal articles, and software components (paper), journals and working paper series (collection), authors of papers or editors of collections (person), as well as the names of organizations that conduct research in economics (institution) (Krichel, n.d.). To assist RePEc contributors, the RePEc site offers "step by step instruction", with many examples, templates, and links to full documentation.

Of all the various collections, databases, and services available within RePEc, IDEAS (Internet Documents in Economics Access Service) (ideas.repec.org) is the most comprehensive, providing access to all RePEc collections and directories (see Figure 3. From within IDEAS, access is provided to WoPEc (netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc.html), a bibliographic database and collection of full-text ("downloadable") versions of working papers and articles, and to BibEc (netec.mcc.ac.uk/BibEc/), a database of bibliographic citations for print publications. WoPEc and BibEc can be searched separately or collectively within NetEc (netec.mcc.ac.uk), "an international academic effort to improve the communication of economics via electronic media" which was founded in 1993. Among other resources, NetEc also provides access to WebEc, a selected and categorized collection of free Internet resources in economics (netec.mcc.ac.uk/WebEc.html).

Figure 3 The homepage and search interface for IDEAS, a major component of RePEc

In addition, RePEc provides access to a directory of "Economics Departments, Institutes and Research Centers in the World" (EDIRC) (edirc.repec.org), which covers these organizations, as well as finance ministries, statistical offices, central banks, think tanks, and other non-profit institutions where economists are employed. Complementing the EDIRC directory is HoPEc (netec.mcc.ac.uk/HoPEc), a registration directory and search service for authors (Cruz et al., 2000). Through a formal process (netec.mcc.ac.uk/adnetec-cgi-bin/register.cgi), authors who contribute to RePEc, and others, can register with the HoPEc service. The registration process provides each author or editor with an individual "handle", thereby permitting an unambiguous and comprehensive author search.

RePEc emerged from the NetEc group, which received support for its WoPEc project between 1996-1999 from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK Higher Education Funding Councils as part of its Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) (RePEc, 2002). Since January 1998, there have been more than 3,275,000 file downloads and more than 26,150,000 abstract views (December 2002).

Institutional

eScholarship Repository (University of California)

Inaugurated in April 2002 (University of California. Office of the President, 2002), the eScholarship Repository (http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/) provides a central location for University of California faculty to deposit electronic versions of working papers, pre-publications, and research reports (Candee, 2002). Sponsored by the California Digital Library (CDL) (http://www.cdlib.org/) – a "co-library of the campuses of the University of California" – the repository offers "persistent access" and facilitates discovery of UC faculty scholarship (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 The eScholarship Repository is a component of the eScholarship initiative of the California Digital Library project

Among its stated benefits, the eScholarship Repository offers university units, centers, and departments:

• •

  an alternative to commercial ventures or self-publishing;

• •

  free access to advanced electronic publication technology;

• •

  software that facilitates expeditious and efficient publication;

• •

  ability to upload associated content, e.g. images, spreadsheets, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, etc.;

• •

  worldwide accessibility to scholarship via the Open Archives Initiative (OAI);

• •

  increased visibility of individual and organizational research and programs;

• •

  e-mail alerting service for new content; and

• •

  basic and advanced searching (e.g. author, date, keyword, Boolean, and full-text searches are also supported).

This institutional repository is one component of the broader CDL eScholarship program (http://www.escholarship.cdlib.org/), a project intended to facilitate and support scholar-led innovations in scholarly communication. Other publishing initiatives within the program include electronic journals, digital books, and data sets.

Glasgow ePrints Service (University of Glasgow)

The Glasgow ePrints Service (eprints.lib.gla.ac.uk) is an experimental Open Archives service (www.openarchives.org) established to provide access to the full text of the research output of scholars, scientists, and researchers affiliated with the University of Glasgow, and intended to complement current conventional publication "routes and services" (Nixon, 2002). It is expected that participation in the ePrints service will make university faculty scholarship more "visible, accessible and usable through a global network of interlinked Open Archive services" (www.openarchives.org).

Currently, use of the Glasgow ePrints Service is limited to members of the University of Glasgow community. At present a wide variety of document types can be submitted, and include:

• •

  conference papers;

• •

  gray literature;

• •

  preprints;

• •

  project reports;

• •

  published papers;

• •

  technical reports;

• •

  theses.

Documents incorporated within the service can be browsed by classes and subclasses of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) Outline (Library of Congress. Cataloging Policy and Support Office, 2002) (see Table I). Documents can be assigned to one or more LCC subclasses and associated classes (e.g. Q Science: QA Mathematics: QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science; Z Bibliography. Library science. Information resources: ZA Information resources: ZA4050 Electronic information resources).

For those subclasses that are populated, the user may display and browse incorporated documents and subsequently retrieve document full text in one or more available formats (e.g. XML, DocBook, PDF, HTML, etc.).

The ePrint service can also be browsed by university department, division, program, or administrative unit (see Table II).

In a "Simple" search, the user can search the ePrints service database by "title/abstract/keyword", by author, by publication type, singularly, or in combination. The search results may be pre-sorted alphabetically by author surname, or title, or in ascending or descending order. In addition to the standard title, author, abstract, and/or keyword options, the "Advanced" search option provides users with a number of search and limit options. Among a variety of options, users may search or limit by LCC "subject categories", ePrint type (e.g. "Book Chapter", "Conference Poster", "Preprint"), and/or "Faculty", "Status" (e.g. "Published", "Unpublished", "Grey Literature"), referee status (i.e. "Yes" or "No"), or by publication year.

To assist the user in depositing documents within the ePrints repository, detailed instructions are provided, and include select screen. Full explanations guide the user through the various stages of the deposition process, notably selection of document type, input of bibliographic information, selection of subject category (or categories), indication of document format (e.g. HTML, PDF, PostScript, etc.), and document upload. At the present time, the Glasgow ePrints Server accepts the following document types: HTML, Rich Text Format (RTF), PDF, PostScript, XML, DocBook, XML, and TEI (Text Encoding Initiative); others are currently under consideration. If necessary, accepted submissions will be enhanced "with additional subject headings [LCC subclasses], keywords, or further information" (Nixon, 2002).

The Glasgow ePrints service is a local implementation of the ePrints.org Open Archive software (v. 1.1.2 (29 October, 2001)), which is available free-of-charge from eprints.org. In Spring 2002, the University of Glasgow was awarded funding under the Focus on Access to Institutional Resources (FAIR) program to support a new e-prints repository initiative named DAEDALUS (Data-providers for Academic E-content and the Disclosure of Assets for Learning, Understanding and Scholarship) (www.lib.gla.ac.uk/daedalus/) that will build on the Glasgow ePrints Service (Nixon, 2002).

Knowledge Bank (Ohio State University)

The concept of the Knowledge Bank (or Research Bank) was first articulated in 2001 during deliberations of the Ohio State University (OSU) Distance Learning/Continuing Education Committee upon realization that "the generation, collection, indexing, and preservation of intellectual content … might benefit from the application of new digital technology and more focused organization". The Knowledge Bank is envisioned as both a "referatory" and a "repository". The former is viewed as a gateway to digital objects produced by OSU faculty, staff, and students, while the latter is envisioned as an electronic archive for the digital content created at the university that facilitates long-term "use, dissemination, and preservation" (Branin, 2002; OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee, 2002).

A series of benefits are anticipated from the implementation of the Knowledge Bank concept, and include:

• •

  improved access to scholarly communication throughout its life cycle (e.g. informal communications about initial research questions and data, classroom presentations, preprints, technical reports, formal publications, etc.);

• •

  integration of content to drive knowledge (e.g. to provide improved decision support);

• •

  synergies and economies of scale realized though cooperative effort;

• •

  archiving and preservation of digital output to secure long-term access;

• •

  leveraging of institutional knowledge capital (e.g. innovative re-use of research and learning materials);

• •

  revenue potential for selected items;

• •

  increased visibility for OSU; and

• •

  fulfillment of land grant outreach mission (OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee, 2002).

In addition to its noted core functions, it is envisioned that the OSU Knowledge Bank will also include a directory of OSU-conducted research, serve as a scholarly portal, and incorporate other types of intellectual assets generated by the university, among other resources and services (OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee, 2002).

Although the focus of the Knowledge Bank is the dissemination and preservation of available digital content rather than on its preparation, there is clear acknowledgment of the importance of preparation to the realization of the Knowledge Bank concept. The potential benefits of the Knowledge Bank can only be fully achieved when members of the OSU community are able to contribute significantly to it (OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee, 2002).

It is expected that the Knowledge Bank will initially serve as the framework for "coordinating, supporting, and extending digital initiatives already underway at OSU", with the incorporation of "new initiatives that would be 'low cost, high impact"', as well as those that can leverage appropriate grant funding or partnership opportunities. Instead of "a central repository intended to incorporate existing college and departmental digital initiatives", a configuration that is initially focused on developing "integrated access to this distributed content" has been recommended (see Figure 5). The application of basic metadata standards and the implementation of a Knowledge Bank engine that provides unified access are key components of the process (OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee, 2002).

The OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee clearly recognizes the fundamental importance of establishing selection, indexing, and preservation policies at the institutional level, as well as those relating to intellectual property, access, and use (OSU Knowledge Bank Planning Committee, 2002).

Figure 5 A schematic depicting potential organizational and technical configurations for the envisioned Ohio State University Knowledge Bank

NoteThis is the first of three eProfiles on scholar-based innovations in publishing. The second in the series will focus on library and professional initiatives, while the third will profile organizational and national efforts.

References and further readingBranin, J.J. (2002), "Defining local needs and developing local implementation strategies: The Knowledge Bank Project at the Ohio State University", paper presented at Institutional Repositories: A Workshop on Creating an Infrastructure for Faculty-Library Partnerships, Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC, 18 October, available at: www.arl.org/IR/1branin_files/frame.htm (accessed 4 January 2003).Candee, C.H. (2002), "Institutional repositories: changing scholarly communication by, for, with faculty of the University of California", paper presented at Institutional Repositories: A Workshop on Creating an Infrastructure for Faculty-Library Partnerships, Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC, 18 October, available at: www.arl.org/IR/candee/sld001.htm (accessed 4 January 2003).CogPrints (n.d.), "The depositing process", available at: http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/help/#Process (accessed 27 November 2002).Cornell University, (2002), "Online physics archive that is transforming global science communication, 'arXiv.org,' is moving from Los Alamos to Cornell University", available at: www.news.cornell.edu/releases/July01/ginsparg.archive.ws.html (accessed 26 November 2002).Crow, R. (2002), The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper, SPARC, Washington, DC, available at: www.arl.org/sparc/IR/IR_Final_Release_102.pdf (accessed 28 September 2002).Cruz, J.M.B. and Krichel, T. (2000), "Cataloging Economics preprints: an introduction to the RePEc project", Journal of Internet Cataloging, Vol. 3 Nos 2/3, pp. 227-41, available at: http://openlib.org/home/krichel/papers/shankari.html (accessed 28 December 2002).Cruz, J.M.B., Klink, M.J.R. and Krichel, T. (2000), "Personal data in a large digital library", paper presented at ECDL 2000: The Fourth European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, 18-20 September 2000, Lisbon, Portugal. Available at: http://openlib.org/home/krichel/phoenix.html (accessed 27 November 2002).Ginsparg, P. (1994), "First steps toward electronic research communication", Computers in Physics, Vol. 8 No. 4, July/August, pp. 390-6.Hurd, J.M. (1996), "High energy physics", in Crawford, S.Y., Hurd, J.M. and Weller, A.C. (Eds), From Print to Electronic: The Transformation of Scientific Communication, Information Today, Inc., Medford, NJ.John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2002), "Paul Ginsparg", available at: www.macfound.org/programs/fel/2002fellows/ginsparg_paul.htm (accessed 27 November 2002).Johnson, R. (2002), "Institutional repositories: partnering with faculty to enhance scholarly communication", D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 8 No. 11, November, available at: www.dlib.org/dlib/november02/johnson/11johnson.html (accessed 28 December 2002).Krichel, T. (n.d.), "Access to scientific literature on the WWW: the RePEc concept", available at: http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/RePEc/concepts.html (accessed 27 November 2002).Krichel, T. (2000), "Working towards an Open Library for Economics: the RePEc project", available at: http://openlib.org/home/krichel/myers.html (accessed 27 November 2002).Krichel, T. (2001), "RePEc, an Open Library for Economics", available at: http://openlib.org/home/krichel/papers/salisbury.html (accessed 30 December 2002).Krichel, T. (2002), "Setting up large scale archive networks", paper presented at the 2nd Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI): Gaining Independence with E-prints Archives and OAI, Geneva, CERN, October 17-19, 2002, available at: http://doc.cern.ch/AGE/current/askArchive.php?a02333/a02333s5t6/transparencies/Thomas_Krichel.pdf (accessed 1 December 2002).Krichel, T., Cruz, J., Karlsson, S., Kurmanov, I. and Zimmermann, C. (n.d.), "RePEc ReDIF", available at http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/RePEc/ReDIF.html (accessed 27 November 2002).Lagoze, C., Van de Sompel, H., Nelson, M., and Warner, S. (Eds) (2002), "The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting: Protocol Version 2.0 of 2002-06-14", available at: www.openarchives.org/OAI/openarchivesprotocol.html (accessed 7 January 2003).Library of Congress. 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Gerry McKiernan (gerrymck@iastate.edu) is a Science and Technology Librarian and Bibliographer, Iowa State University Library, Ames, Iowa, USA.