I forward this exchange on another list since it relates to chemistry!

Approved-By: harnad@COGLIT.SOTON.AC.UK X-Sender: till@corona.oci.utoronto.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 14:42:16 -0400 Reply-To: September 1998 American Scientist Forum <SEPTEMBER98-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG> Sender: September 1998 American Scientist Forum <SEPTEMBER98-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG> From: Jim Till <till@UHNRES.UTORONTO.CA> Subject: Re: Elsevier's ChemWeb Preprint Archive To: SEPTEMBER98-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG Status: U

On Tue, 29 May 2001, I posted message to this Forum which included this criticism of the Chemistry Preprint Server (CPS):

[jt]>Another flaw [is that the CPS isn't] on the list of "Open Archives" [jt]>(at: http://oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu/Register/BrowseSites.pl). [jt]>So, the CPS archive doesn't meet an "inter-operability" criterion.

I've just received a copy of Volume 4, Issue 33 of the ChemWeb.com News Bulletin (distributed to subscribers via email on August 15, 2001). It's a special issue in recognition of the establishment of the CPS, a year ago (on August 21, 2000 - the CPS is at: http://preprint.chemweb.com).

An excerpt from this newsletter:

...

The CPS was developed by closely following the Los Alamos archives (http://arxiv.org), which cover physics and related disciplines. In setting up the service ChemWeb.com has constantly referred to the Open Archive Initiative (http://www.openarchives.org) for e-print archives.

In this excerpt, it's emphasized that the design of the CPS server has been guided by the Open Archives Initiative. But, it seems to me that a crucial element, inter-operability of OAI-compliant eprint archives, probably still isn't being met by the CPS server.

I've just visited the current list of registered OAI-conforming repositories (see: http://oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu/Register/BrowseSites.pl).

The CPS isn't listed. So, either it's registered but doesn't appear yet on the list, it isn't registered, or it isn't fully OAI-conforming. I suspect that it isn't fully OAI-conforming.

Have I missed something?

Jim Till University of Toronto

The definitive answer is that CPS has not filled out the registration form at openarchives.org. If they did, we would be happy to validate their site. Donna Bergmark Cornell Digital Library Research Group (and Open Archives Initiative) -- Henry Rzepa. Imperial College, Chemistry Dept. +44 020 7594 5774 (Office) +44 020 7594 5804 (Fax) chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. To post to list: mailto:chemweb@ic.ac.uk Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@ic.ac.uk the following message; (un)subscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)