Re: Elsevier's ChemWeb Preprint Archive

From: Weeks, James (ELSLON) <"Weeks,>
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 15:51:12 +0100

Dear Stevan,

Thank you for your comments. You have raised some very interesting issues
which we too have been thinking about for the Chemistry Preprint Server
(CPS).

First of all, I think it is important to note that we also believe that the
preprint server should act as a permanent archive of submitted articles.
Chemists often communicate in different ways to many other scientists and to
achieve our goals we are slowly having to change the mindset of chemists.
Many chemistry publishers, however, are a potential barrier to the concept
of preprints in chemistry. Many will not accept papers for submission which
have already been preprinted elsewhere, and others will not accept the paper
if it remains available in any other form. What we had initially planned to
do, and in fact what we are doing, is only allowing the author to remove the
full text of his/her paper if they provide details for us to create a
hyperlink to an online version of the published article. This is done via
software created by our sister company, MDL, called LitLink. All of the
other details concerning the original submission to CPS, including the
author name, affiliation, article title, abstract, and also the discussion
about that article remain accessible on the CPS. Furthermore, the original
articles are never erased from the server and can be used to contest issues
of prior art.

There is also nothing to stop an author posting an article on the CPS which
has been submitted, refereed, accepted or even rejected by a journal
publisher. The CPS policy is simply not to accept an article where the
copyright has already been transferred to a publisher, unless that publisher
supports the CPS.

I hope these comments help to explain our policies. We would of course be
most happy for you to comment further on the CPS, and maybe discuss it with
you further. Bryan Vickery, Community Development Manager of ChemWeb.com
will be attending the International Chemical Information Conference in
Annecy this month, where I believe you are speaking.

Best wishes,

James
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT