PAMnet News Catherine Candee NRC Study Robert Michaelson noticed an NRC study in the works, an overview of physics, calls for discussions of physics & society, education, connections with other fields, the changing environment for physics research, etc.
(
http://www.nas.edu/bpa/projects/physicssurvey/#Phase_III) with no mention of changes in physics information, i.e., no mention of the impact of xxx.lanl or other electronic access modes. There was quick agreement that this omission should be pointed out and a crack team of PAM members dashed off a letter to Tom Appelquist, chair of the Physics Survey Overview Committee for NRC. The full text of the letters are in the PAMnet Archives beginning at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9907&L=pamnet&O=D&P=11002 APS on Electronic Information Systems In a development parallel to the NRC Overview of Physics, Molly White informed us that the APS is working on a second report on Electronic Information Systems and another crack PAM team swung into action and generated a memo to be sent to the chair of the APS task force. That letter is also in the archives at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=pamnet&O=D&P=460 BiblioNet Ian Gordon filed a review of CISTI's new BiblioNet service
(http://www.nrc.ca/cisti/biblionet/). BiblioNet is a web-based electronic information service providing end-user access to tables of contents of over 1600 journals, bibliographic databases including INSPEC from 1995 to the present and a 12 month rolling archive of the ComputerSelect database, reference and document deliver services. BiblioNet is available for individual or institutional memberships. Beginning Sept. 1, 1999, individuals will have full access to BiblioNet for an annual fee of $100. The full review can be read in the PAMnet Archive at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgibin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=pamnet&O=D&F=&S=&P=836 Whither NTIS? There was general alarm sounded as we learned from the Dept of Commerce that NTIS was no longer needed and would therefore be closed. The sentiments registered on PAMnet were echoed around the country, and more than a few letters were written to William M. Daley explaining that in fact everything wasn't free and available, and that we need NTIS. Brenda Corbin's archived message at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=pamnet&D=0&O=D&P=4913 includes the text of one such letter and links to David Bender's letter representing SLA (posted under "Public Responses") PubSCIENCE Molly White forwarded a piece by Eliot Marshall which appeared in Science, 285: 811 (1999) and is also available at
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/285/5429/811a. The article announces DOE's plan to offer "a comprehensive new database of scientific papers in the physical sciences called
PubSCIENCE." DOE staff interviewed by Marshall explained "the goal is to index just about every scientific journal that isn't already indexed in PubMED - the online collection of medical information based at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - and to link abstracts back to each publisher's Web site." Interesting comments followed by Peter Boyce of AAS and Arthur Smith of APS concerning the apparent redundancy of PubSCIENCE with other systems; they debate whether or not this is a good use of resources and where the other systems might fit into the PubSCIENCE scheme. Their comments are worth reading and are in the archive at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=pamnet&O=D&F=&S=&P=3007
Also see the post-commentary period letter from Harold Varmus reagarding the E-biomed proposal. His letter was forwarded by David Stern and can be found in the archive at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=pamnet&O=D&F=&S=&P=6104 What Author's Want David Stern passed on a message from Anne Davenport announcing the publication of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers' report - 'What authors Want'. The survey of contributors to learned journals received a 30% response from the 11500 international authors surveyed in a wide range of subjects. The report covers: What motivates authors to publish in journals? How authors decide where to publish? What concerns authors about the publishing system today? What changes or future expectations authors have regarding the publishing process, peer review, copyright and the future of electronic publishing and pre-prints? A synopsis and order form can be found on
www.alpsp.org Another commercial journal? In response to the announcement of a new physics journal -- The European Physical Journal E: Soft Matter -- David Stern asked if there could "really be this much new physics information that is worthy of COMMERCIAL distribution, as opposed to delivery via free (and peer-reviewed) e-print servers?" His lament set off a stormy debate which moved on at least two, sometimes three axes, and continued unabated as this summary was written. Peter Boyce warned against expectations that preprint servers would "solve the information problem." He highlighted the limitations of preprint servers: they are based on the print paradigm; they merely reproduce pages, discarding the structural information of the original paper; their formats are not archivally robust; etc. He notes that capabilities could be introduced to the preprint servers, but then the need for standards, consistency, and human input would transform the elegantly simple preprint server phenomenon into a publishing enterprise. Mark Doyle took issue with him, arguing that there is no explicit requirement that preprint servers are based on electronic versions of paper pages, and that creating HTML versions of articles isn't advancing a new paradigm either. This part of the debate continued, centered on costs of markup and other processing and the sufficiency of the e-print solution. In another vein, Arthur Smith, responding to David Stern's disapproval of The European Physical Journal, spoke to the necessity to split journals in the face of expanding research, as APS did with PRA/E. He locates the responsibility with the libraries, and implored them to 1) stop insisting on print and decide what is needed for archiving, 2) promote e-journals to
patrons, and 3) pressure vendors of A&I services to include e-only titles in their databases. David Stern explained that his gripe is not with costs and models per se, but with the commercial aspects of journal proliferation and distribution. He envisions a time when libraries will not be willing to pay for this kind of packaging, when the value will be in the editing and archiving infrastructure. "It would be cheaper to pay for electronic peer review, editing, and archival aspects… the costs could be covered by page charges, corporate fees, and societal subsidies." Getting to the nub of the problem of acceptance of a non-commercial model, David pinned the blame on the tenure and promotion system. Both streams of the discussion developed at length, with thoughtful contributions from Kerry Kresse, Gary Davidoff, Sarah Stevens-Rayburn and others. Many arguments concerned the ongoing efforts and challenges in access, archive, and user education for libraries
trying to migrate to electronic collections - all deftly addressed (though not settled, by any means) by Arthur Smith. The discussion should be read in its entirety beginning with the subject line Physics New Journal at
http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9910&L=pamnet&O=D&F=&S=&P=489
and continuing under the subject line New Commercial Journal. Articles and Internet Sites Noted Check out the article on journal costs, "Where does the money go", by Michael Barr from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McGill University. It can be found in the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues, No. 229 at
http://www.lib.unc.edu/prices/1999/PRIC229.HTML The EULER Project has released the Alpha version of the EULER service. The interface allows searching across a range of databases for mathematical books, preprints, web-pages, abstracts, proceedings, serials, technical reports and theses.
http://zaphod.lub.lu.se/euler/engine/engine.html The Mathematics Genealogy Project is the brainchild of retired mathematics professor Harry B. Coonce. The site has the modest goal of listing information about everyone who has earned a doctorate in mathematics during the 20th century
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http://hcoonce.math.mankato.msus.edu/) An 18 month review and deselection process at Fermilab Library unearthed a surprising number of books on the history of physics and resulted in a bibliography from Sara Tompson. It is being distributed as a technical memo, FERMILAB-TM-2091, S. Tompson, Physics History Books in the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (Fermilab) Library, 1999
http://fnalpubs.fnal.gov/archive/1999/tm/TM-2091.html Some new and some not-so-new-but-worthy sites referred to in the course of addressing the question "what reference tool has a definition of a photon that indicates or calculates a mass?"
ccandee@sulmail.stanford.edu
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific announced a listserv for professional astronomers. Messages will be sent approximately bimonthly and will contain information about ASP's professional activities and publications. ASP membership is not required (http://www.aspsky.org)
Suggestions for alerting services in astronomy and astrophysics included:
- SpaceViews at http://www.spaceviews.com/
- Universe Today - http://www.universetoday.com
- Info To Go!: Navigating the Internet-- A subscription publication at: http://www.infotogo.com/
- NewsPage Direct www.individual.com
- PhysicsWeb...latest science news related to physics, including astronomy http://physicsweb.org
A brief report on the PAM-APF Session held at the ALIA Conference, STRAIT to the future 8th Asia-Pacific Specials, Health and Law Librarians Conference, 22 - 26 August 1999 is in the PAMnet Archives at http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9909&L=pamnet&D=0&O=D&P=5104
Four Webpages from ScienceNet offer searchable databases of science information. Linked here are pages covering topics in chemistry, mathematics and computing, physics and astronomy, and technology and engineering. ScienceNet is funded and supported by the National Lottery's Charities Board, Wellcome Trust, and the British Library, among others. See: http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/index.html
See http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/hsl/cms/donation.html for a list of donation programs. There is also an AAS Webpage for donations at http://www.aas.org/donation/
The PAM-APF web pages have all now been updated and now contain: Text of the Report presented at the PAM Roundtable Session, SLA, June 1999, By Christina Louis, Indian Institute of Astronomy; Annual Report of the Committee, 1998/1999; Current Committee Members, 1999/2000 ( http://msowww.anu.edu.au/library/pam/intro.htm)
Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship is available at http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/
SPARC e-news* From the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition is at: www.arl.org/sparc
The Library and Information Technology Association's (LITA-a division of ALA) thoughts on the technological future in libraries: http://www.lita.org/committe/toptech/trendsmw99.htm#trend1 Note especially the bibliographic links listed toward the bottom of the web site.
Liz Bryson forwarded the current issue of Library Link Newsletter. See the Archive at http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9909&L=pamnet&D=0&O=D&P=5873 or you can subscribe at http://www.liblink.co.uk
