ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 184 / C&RL News ■ March 2000 SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS Ivy Anderson, Gail McMillan & Ann C. Schaffner, editors T h e o p e n a r c h i v e s i n i t i a t i v e F orging a p a th to w a rd in te ro p e ra b le a u th o r s e lf-a rc h iv in g systems by Richard E. Luce E fforts aimed at giving authors control over the communication and distribution of their work, in the form of electronic author self-archiving systems, are gaining ground. The Universal Preprint Service (UPS) initia tive, now known as the Open Archives Ini tiative, is one such effort that has been widely publicized and often misreported in recent accounts. The initiative’s goals are to develop a framework for a “universal e-print archive” and to establish interoperability standards supporting the search and retrieval of e-print papers from all disciplines. The hope is to catalyze progress towards new scholarly pub lishing models over the next five-to-ten years. Background Scholarly communication has long suffered from the lag time between summarizing re search results in a publishable article and the formal publication of the article. In certain areas of scholarly activity, electronic preprint archives have become an established medium to communicate non peer-reviewed results of ongoing research quickly. The trend began in high energy physics in 1991 and, since then, the centralized xxx preprint archive founded by Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos National Laboratory has be come a global repository for research in phys ics. xxx (also known as arXiv.org) houses more than 122,000 papers, and is mirrored worldwide in 15 countries, with over 60,000 users daily, xxx has now expanded to incor porate mathematics, non-linear sciences and computer science. Similar efforts are taking place in other disciplines. CogPrints is modeled on xxx and focuses mainly on a collection of papers in cognitive science, psychology, neurology, linguistics, and related fields. NCSTRL (Net worked Computer Science Technical Reports) is a similar initiative, providing a point of access for technical reports in computer sci ence that are either submitted to the CoRR (Computing Research Repository), a part of xxx, or to decentralized departmental archives that cooperate in the initiative. Archives in the NCSTRL initiative share the Dienst proto col, which enables the creation of library- like services that support searching and browsing the archive. Along the same lines, the RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) initiative provides au thors with the option to submit working pa pers to a departmental archive or, if one does not exist, to the EconWPA archive at Wash ington University. The NDLTD project (Networked Digital Li brary of Theses and Dissertations) aims at building a digital library of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) authored by students of member institutions. NDLTD addresses is sues such as the creation of a workflow to About the author Richard E. Luce is library director and Library Without Walls project leader of the Research Library at Los Alamos National Laboratory, e-mail: rick.luce@lanl.gov mailto:rick.luce@lanl.gov C&RL N e w s ■ M a rc h 2 0 00 / 185 s u b m i t E T D s , t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f a n X M L D o c u m e n t T y p e D e f i n i t i o n f o r E T D s a n d t h e s u p p o r t o f a d i g i t a l l i b r a r y f o r E T D s . R e c e n t l y , N I H h a s e x p r e s s e d a s t r o n g i n t e r e s t i n t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f P u b M e d C e n t r a l , a n e - p r i n t i n i t i a t i v e f o r b i o l o g y d e s c r i b e d i n t h e f i r s t c o l u m n i n t h i s s e r i e s (C & R L N e w s , J a n u a r y 2 0 0 0 ) . A l l o f t h e s e p r e p r i n t i n i t i a t i v e s e n d e a v o r t o o p t i m i z e s c h o l a r l y c o m m u n i c a t i o n b y o v e r c o m i n g t h e b a r r i e r s — f i n a n c i a l , l e g a l , e t c . — w h i c h t h e t r a d i t i o n a l f r a m e w o r k h a s e s t a b l i s h e d . W h i l e o t h e r d i s c i p l i n e s a n d i n s t i t u t i o n s h a v e b e g u n t o c r e a t e p u b l i c r e s e a r c h a r c h i v e s a l o n g t h e l i n e s p i o n e e r e d a t L o s A l a m o s , w h a t i s n e e d e d a r e c o n v e n t i o n s t h a t a r c h i v e s c a n a d o p t t o e n s u r e t h a t t h e y w o r k t o g e t h e r . I d e a l l y , a n y s c h o l a r s h o u l d b e a b l e t o f i n d a n y p a p e r i n a n y o f t h e s e p r e p r i n t o r e - p r i n t a r c h i v e s f r o m a n y d e s k t o p w o r l d w i d e , a s i f t h e y w e r e a l l i n o n e v i r t u a l p u b l i c l i b r a r y . T h e i n f o r m a t i o n i n d u s t r y is s l o w l y b e g i n n i n g t o u n d e r s t a n d t h e p o t e n t i a l o f t h e p r e p r i n t c o n c e p t , r e g a r d i n g it e i t h e r a s a n o p p o r t u n i t y f o r c o l l a b o r a t i o n , a s a c h a l l e n g e , o r a s a t h r e a t . T a k in g t h e f i r s t s t e p — U PS I n it ia t iv e I n A p r i l 1 9 9 9 , a c a l l f o r p a r t i c i p a t i o n w a s p u t o u t t o e x i s t i n g e - p r i n t s y s t e m s t o m o b i l i z e a c o r e t e c h n i c a l g r o u p t o w o r k t o w a r d s a c h i e v i n g a u n i v e r s a l s e r v i c e f o r n o n p e e r - r e v i e w e d s c h o l a r l y l i t e r a t u r e . S u c h a u n i v e r s a l s e r v i c e i s c o n s i d e r e d a s t h e f u n d a m e n t a l a n d f r e e l a y e r o f s c h o l a r l y i n f o r m a t i o n , o n t o p o f w h i c h b o t h f r e e a n d c o m m e r c i a l s e r v i c e s c o u l d f l o u r i s h . P a u l G i n s p a r g , H e r b e r t V a n d e S o m p e l a n d I , f r o m L o s A l a m o s N a t i o n a l L a b o r a t o r y , i n i t i a t e d t h e U P S I n i t i a t i v e c a l l f o r p a r t i c i p a t i o n . W e b e l i e v e d t h a t i m p o r t a n t s t e p s t o w a r d s t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f s u c h a u n i v e r s a l s e r v i c e c o u l d b e t a k e n b y i d e n t i f y i n g o r c r e a t i n g i n t e r o p e r a b l e t e c h n o l o g i e s a n d f r a m e w o r k s f o r t h e d i s s e m i n a t i o n o f a u t h o r s e l f - a r c h i v e d d o c u m e n t s ( t e r m e d e - p r i n t s ) . T h e d r i v i n g f o r c e s b e h i n d t h e i n i t i a t i v e w e r e t h e p e r c e p t i o n t h a t m a n y y e a r s o f t h e o r e t i c a l d i s c o u r s e h a v e r e s u l t e d i n f e w f u n d a m e n t a l m e t h o d ological c h a n g e s , a n d o u r h o p e t h a t m o r e - r a p i d p r o g r e s s c o u l d b e c a t a l y z e d b y a c o n s o r t i u m o f i n t e r e s t e d p a r t i e s f o c u s i n g d i r e c t l y o n t h e r e l e v a n t t e c h n o l o g i c a l i s s u e s . T h e U P S m e e t i n g ' w a s h e l d i n S a n t a F e , N e w M e x i c o o n O c t o b e r 2 1 - 2 2 . T h e p a r t i c i p a n t s i n t h e m e e t i n g w e r e d i g i t a l l i b r a r i a n s a n d c o m p u t e r s c i e n t i s t s s p e c i a l i z i n g i n a r c h i v i n g , m e t a d a t a , a n d i n t e r o p e r a b i l i t y , a n d t h e y i n c l u d e d t h e f o u n d e r s o f t h e p r i n c i p a l p u b l i c r e s e a r c h a r c h i v e s . T h e p a r t i c i p a n t s w e r e d i v e r s e i n t h e i r u n d e r l y i n g m o t i v a t i o n s , b u t e n t i r e l y u n i f i e d i n t h e i r o b j e c t i v e o f p a v i n g t h e w a y f o r u n i v e r s a l p u b l i c a r c h i v i n g o f t h e s c i e n t i f i c a n d s c h o l a r l y r e s e a r c h l i t e r a t u r e o n t h e W e b . S p o n s o r s h i p f o r t h e m e e t i n g w a s o b t a i n e d f r o m t h e C o u n c i l o n L i b r a r y a n d I n f o r m a t i o n R e s o u r c e s ; t h e D i g i t a l L i b r a r y F e d e r a t i o n ; S P A R C ; A R L ; a n d t h e R e s e a r c h L i b r a r y a t t h e L o s A l a m o s N a t i o n a l L a b o r a t o r y . A s e t o f o b j e c t i v e s w a s o u t l i n e d f o r t h e m e e t i n g . T h e s e o b j e c t i v e s s u p p o r t e d t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f s o l u t i o n s t o s o m e o f t h e p u r e l y t e c h n i c a l o b s t a c l e s t o a m o r e - e f f e c t i v e e l e c t r o n i c s c h o l a r l y c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m a n d c e n t e r e d a r o u n d t h e f o l l o w i n g c o n c e p t s : 1 . s t i m u l a t i n g t h e a d o p t i o n o f t h e p r e p r i n t c o n c e p t i n a ll a r e a s o f s c h o l a r l y r e s e a r c h ; 2 . i n t e g r a t i n g p r e p r i n t s e r v i c e s i n t o t h e s c h o l a r l y d o c u m e n t s y s t e m o f s c h o l a r l y j o u r n a l s , A & I s e r v i c e s a n d l i b r a r i e s ; 3 . c r e a t i n g s e a r c h a n d r e t r i e v a l f u n c t i o n a l i t y f o r p r e p r i n t a r c h i v e s t h a t c a n b e s i m u l t a n e o u s l y u s e f u l f o r d i s c i p l i n e - s p e c i f i c , c r o s s - d i s c i p l i n a r y , i n t e r - i n s t i t u t i o n a l a n d i n t r a - i n s t i t u t i o n a l p u r p o s e s ; 4 . d e v e l o p i n g u s e r - f r i e n d l y s y s t e m s , i . e . , a l o n g t h e l i n e s o f e s t a b l i s h e d s e a r c h a n d r e t r i e v a l m e t h o d s ; a n d 5 . i n c l u d i n g t h e f u l l r a n g e o f m e t a - d a t a , f u l l - t e x t , a n d c i t a t i o n d a t a . T h e g r o u p a g r e e d o n a s e t o f m i n i m a l t e c h n i c a l r e q u i r e m e n t s f o r a r c h i v e s . T h e s e w i l l b e p u b l i s h e d s e p a r a t e l y a s t h e “S a n t a F e C o n v e n t i o n s ” a n d , d u r i n g t h e n e x t s i x m o n t h s , A b o u t t h e e d i t o r Ivy A n d e rso n is co o rd ¡n a to rfo r D ig ita l A cq u isitio n s a t H arvard U niversity, e-m ail: ivy_anderson@ harvard.edu; G ail M cM illan is h ea d o f th e D ig ita l Lib ra ry a n d A rch ives (fo rm erly th e Sch olarly C om m unications P roject) a t Virginia Tech U niversity, e-m ail: g a ilm a c@ vt.e d u ; A n n C. S c h a ffh e r is a sso cia te u n iv e rs ity lib ra ria n fo r R e se a rch S e rv ic e s, In s tru c tio n ‹S P la n n in g a t B ra n d e is U n iv e rsity , e-m a il: sc h a ffn e @ b ra n d e is.e d u mailto:ivy_anderson@harvard.edu mailto:gailmac@vt.edu mailto:schaffne@brandeis.edu 186 / C&RL News • March 2000 w ill be implemented in the existing ar chives. Technical su m m a ry All the participants agreed that scientific pa pers should be freely accessible to the pub lic, although individual participants differed on specifics, such as how to handle non-peer- reviewed material. The first meeting concen trated on the creation of cross-archive end- user services. The aim was to identify general architectural and technical characteristics of archive solutions that would facilitate the cre ation o f such services. These characteristics could then be recommended for existing and upcoming initiatives. The meeting began with a presentation and demonstration by a team consisting of Herbert Van de Sompel, Michael Nelson (NASA Langley and Old Dominion Univer sity), and Thomas Krichel (University of Sur rey and RePEc initiative). This group had built an experimental end-user service providing access to data originating from existing archive initiatives. The presentation identified prob lems that arose during the project, and dis cussion of these problems served to launch the meeting discussions. Participants concluded that many differ ent archive initiatives were likely to emerge, with different conceptual, organizational, and technical foundations. For such initiatives to become part o f the scholarly communication system, interoperability was essential. Consensus was reached that interoper ability hinges on a fundamental distinction between the archive functions, which include data-collection and maintenance, and end- user functions, like the cross-system search and linking prototype service described in the opening session. Although archive initia tives can implement their own end-user ser vices, it is essential that the archives remain URLs E p r i n t a r c h iv e s • xxx preprint archive at Los Alamos: http://xxx.lanl.org • CogPrints: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk • NCSTRL: http://www.ncstrl.org • EconWPA: http://econwpa.wustl.edu • NDLTD: http://www.ndltd.org “open” to allow others to create such ser vices. A discussion on the technicalities of cre ating end-user services for data originating from different archives followed. The group recognized that there are basically two ways to implement these: a distributed searching approach and a harvesting approach. The former would require archives to implement a joint distributed search protocol, which would be difficult. Moreover, there are im portant problems of scale when implement ing such distributed search solutions, in light of the possible emergence of thousands of institutional and/or subject-oriented archives worldwide. The group agreed that this was not a realistic approach at this time, and that a harvesting solution was more appropriate. Such a harvesting solution would allow trusted parties—the ones that subscribe to the Santa Fe Conventions—to collect data selec tively from different archives. The conven tions propose adoption of portions of the Dienst protocol for the harvesting of data and a minimal Dublin Core compliant metadata set, called the Santa Fe Set, which should be made available by all archives to respond to harvesting requests. The representatives of existing archive ini tiatives at the meeting, as well as those from institutions that are in the process of setting up archive initiatives, agreed to comply with those guidelines. The Dienst protocol will be enhanced to allow for the functions men tioned above and a minimal Dienst release, facilitating the process of making an archive compliant to the required aspects of Dienst, will be made available. A transport format for MARC-formatted metadata will be pro posed, as well as an XML Document Type Definition for the description of the Santa Fe Set. The recommendations will be extensively documented on a Web site and adoption of the recommendations w ill be promoted worldwide. The p a th fo rw a rd The Open Archives initiative has created a forum to discuss and solve technical matters o f interoperability between author self archiving solutions, as a way to promote their global acceptance (see h ttp ://w w w . openarchives.org). (continued on page 202) http://www http://xxx.lanl.org http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk http://www.ncstrl.org http://econwpa.wustl.edu http://www.ndltd.org 2 0 2 / C& RL N e w s ■ M a r c h 2 0 0 0 b io g ra p h ic a l e n tries a n d a d e s c rip tio n o f the d is c o v e ry that e a rn e d th e N o b e l P rize . Access. h t t p : / / w w w . s l a c . s t a n f o r d . e d u / l i b r a r y / n o b e l.h tm l. • Contributions o f 20th Century W om en to Ph ysics. A n a rc h iv e o f m o r e th an 80 cita tio n s o f w o m e n w h o c o n trib u te d to p h y sic s in th e 20th cen tu ry c rea te d b y th e U C L A D e p a rt m e n t o f P h y s i c s . A ccess: h t t p : / / w w w . p h y sics.u cla.ed u / ~ cw p / . History of Physics • C en ter fo r the H isto ry o f Physics. This cen ter, a s e c tio n o f th e A m e ric a n Institute o f P h ysics, has a m issio n to p re s e rv e a n d m a k e k n o w n th e h is to iy o f m o d e rn p h ysics a n d al lie d field s, in clu d in g a s tron o m y, g e o p h y s ic s , optics, a n d the lik e. Access- h ttp://w w w .aip.org/ history/. • H isto ry o f Ph ysics G ro u p . Th e Insti tu te o f P h ysics esta b lish e d this g r o u p in 1984 to s ec u re th e w ritten , oral, a n d instrum ental re c o rd o f British p h y sic s f o r p o s te rity an d to e x p lo r e w a y s in w h ic h h isto ry ca n b e u s e d m o r e e ffe c tiv e ly in th e u n d erstan d in g, te a c h in g, a n d g e n e ra l c o m m u n ic a tio n o f physics. Access: h ttp :/ / w w w .io p .o rg / IO P / G rou p s / H P / . “Scholarly Comm. ” co n t.fro m page 186) A g r e e m e n t w a s re a c h e d o n th e fo llo w in g to p a v e a p ath fo rw a rd : • th e m in im a l D ie n s t p r o to c o l set w ill b e im p le m e n te d f o r all arch iv es that w e r e re p r e s e n te d at th e m e etin g . T h is w ill a llo w fo r a first ro u n d o f e x p e rim e n ta tio n w ith th e c re atio n o f e n d -u s e r s e rv ic e s la y e i'e d o v e r e xis t in g arch ives; • th e re is an u rgen t n e e d to discuss th e m e c h a n is m s u s e d to su b m it m a terial t o ar c h iv e s; • it is im p o rta n t to h a v e p resen tation s and/ o r w o r k s h o p s at u p c o m in g d ig ita l lib rary c o n fere n ce s ; • th e e x p e rim e n ta l, n o n -p ro d u c tio n p r o to ty p e that w a s p re s e n te d at th e m e e tin g w ill te m p o r a r ily b e a v a ila b le f o r e x p lo r a t io n at h ttp://u p s.cs.odu .edu . T h e re p res en ta tiv e s o f O ld D o m in io n U n iversity, Los A la m o s N a tion al L a b o ra to ry R esea rch Library, a n d th e U n iv e r sity o f G h e n t e x p re s s e d th eir in terest in c o n tin u in g this p r o to ty p in g w o r k ; an d • th e U P S In itia tiv e h as b e e n re n a m e d . It is n o w re fe rre d to as th e O p e n A r c h iv e s In itia tive. Discussion groups A k e y m a ilin g list f o r p h y s ic s lib raria n s is P A M n e t, th e d is c u s s io n list f o r th e P h ysics, A s tr o n o m y a n d M a th e m a tic s (P A M ) D iv is io n o f th e S p e c ia l L ib rarie s A s s o c ia tio n . T h e p u r p o s e o f P A M n e t is t o p r o v id e a fo r u m f o r th e d iscu ssio n o f lib rary a n d in fo rm a tio n re s o u rc e issu es re le v a n t to p h y s ic s , a s tro n o m y , an d m a th em atics. P A M n e t m a y b e u s e d t o s e e k h e lp w ith r e fe r e n c e q u e s tio n s a n d in o b ta in in g m a terials, b u t o n ly w h e n th o s e m a terials a re n o t a v a ila b le th ro u g h a lib ra ry ’s n o rm a l IL L o r d o c u m e n t d e liv e r y s u p p lie rs o r w h e n tim in g is critical. T h e list is o p e n to n o n -P A M d iv is io n m e m b e r s . T o s u b s c r ib e , c o n t a c t D a v id Stern, th e list o w n e r , at d a v id .e .s te rn @ y a le .e d u . O th e r m a ilin g lists re la te d to p h y sic s can b e fo u n d in th e P h ysics s e c tio n o f “T h e D ire c to ry o f S ch o larly a n d P ro fe s s io n a l E -C o n fe r e n c e s ,” m a in ta in e d b y D ia n e K o v a c s . Access: h t t p : / / w w w . n 2 h 2 . c o m / K O V A C S / S 0 1 0 6 . html. T h e r e is a p h y s ic s h ie r a r c h y o f d is c u s s i o n g r o u p s in U s e n e t . T h e s e i n c l u d e s c i . p h y s i c s , s c i . p h y s i c s . r e l a t i v i t y , a n d sc i.p h y s ic s .re s e a r c h . ■ Some issues and questions T h e in itia tive d isc u s se d a b o v e raises sev era l s o c ia l issues c o n c e r n in g s c h o la rly c o m m u n i c ation . A m o n g th e issues o f r e le v a n c e to aca d e m ic a n d re search institutions a re th e f o llo w ing: • W ill th e institu tion p r o v id e o r s u p p o rt a d ep a rtm e n ta l o r in stitu tional e-p rin t a rc h iv e o f au th ors a ffilia te d w ith th e institution? I f so, w ill it a d o p t o r in c o rp o ra te th e Santa F e p ro to c o ls to g a in w id e r e x p o s u re an d in terop erab ility? • H o w w ill rese arch lib raries p a c k a g e an d d e liv e r a ccess to e -p rin t literature? • W ith th e re s o lu tio n o f e -p rin t a rc h iv e in te ro p e ra b ility te c h n ic al issues, w h a t w ill b e th e p ro c e s s o f r e s o lv in g th e s o c ia l issues c o n n e c te d w ith te n u re a n d pub lish in g? W h ile it is n o t th e in te n t o f th e O p e n A r c h iv e s In itia tiv e to d e a l w ith th o s e s o c ia l is sues, th e ir r e s o lu tio n w ill b e a n im p o rta n t fa c to r in d e te r m in in g h o w q u ic k ly th e p a ra d i g m f o r s c h o l a r l y c o m m u n i c a t i o n w i l l c h a n g e . A t o u r m e e t in g in O c to b e r , w e tried to la y th e g r o u n d w o r k f o r te c h n ic a l stan d ard s that w ill s u p p o rt n e w m o d e ls o f s c h o la rly p u b lis h in g . ■ http://www.slac.stanford.edu/library/ http://www http://www.aip.org/ http://www.iop.org/IOP/Groups/HP/ http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/S0106 http://ups.cs.odu.edu