COMMENTS ON

E-biomed: A Proposal for Electronic Publications in the Biomedical Sciences (May 5, 1999 DRAFT)

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August 16 - 22, 1999
August 17, 1999

J. J. Anderson, NIGMS/NIH, August 17, 1999

RE: Another suggestion on the scope of E-Biomed (now E-Biosci)

In the course of reading a number of commentaries on how e-biomed will facilitate access to otherwise unpublished information, I haven't seen reference to the value of resurrecting old, but potentially very useful literature. I refer to papers that, because of their early publication dates, are not referenced by electronic databases maintained by ISI, NLM or other such services. Such papers may not readily be available even if the reference was known, and their value may be lost. This is especially true in an age that allows scant time to dig back through hard copy indexes and dusty library shelves. Much of the older literature might as well be extinct.

I propose that individual investigators be encouraged to post older papers (scanned copy?), or at least their references, so that the e-biomed search engine would be able to recover them. Older investigators, carrying in their head a wealth of information that could easily be lost, could insure that key papers or, perhaps more useful, papers with intriguing but unexplored observations, would be preserved in an accessible manner. It would be a shame to lose this information when a tool like e-biomed seems ideal for its preservation.

I hope this is useful.
J. J. Anderson
NIGMS/NIH

August 16, 1999

John Schmidt, Department of Biological Sciences, Wichita State University, August 16, 1999

Dear Harold

I am sickened (while not being particularly surprised) by the avalanche of propaganda coming from the vested publishing interests against the E-biomed concept. I urge you to cut through all of the criticisms and simply negotiate a contract with one of the established internet companies (such as Yahoo or AltaVista) for the establishment of a central bioscience publications data base. The NIH should maintain a portal to this new data base system by way of the existing PubMed system. It should be an open data base with anyone freely able to adapt their own portals to it.

After the initial start up costs (to pay for hardware and data base programming) the bioscience publications data base should be self-supporting by selling "web space", reviewer services, through advertising, and use access fees to portal providers. While most users of the service may choose to keep the original versions of their bioscience publications on their own computers, some users will be willing to pay realistically small charges for "web space" on the data base's central computers. One time charges of no more than $100.00 should cover the cost of archiving of bioscience publications in perpetuity within the system. A new industry of freelance contract reviewing should be encouraged through which reviews of bioscience publications can be obtained at a free market price through the data base service system. As the data base of bioscience publications grows, it will attract advertisers.....there is nothing wrong with using the "banner" system that already exists for web advertising. Drug companies and others who compete for the attention of both scientists and patients will pay to have advertisements linked to the database contents.

The main function of the bioscience publications data base must be to point to bioscience publications that exist on any computer in the world and to provide for a unified system for linking reviews and commentaries to the bioscience publications that added by scientists to the data base. Once these basic elements are in place, the system will evolve to a stable equilibrium in which access to information is assured and the scientific community will supply the required quality control through open review and commentary on the bioscience publications that are entered into the system. The success of the system will be guaranteed by individual scientists and the public at large; there need be no effort to gain the cooperation of existing bioscience print journals.

Do not invite the existing special interests into planning the E-biomed system. Just build it.....the scientists and the public will come. It will naturally evolve to do the job that must be done as long as the existing special interests are not allowed to interfere.

John Schmidt
Department of Biological Sciences
Wichita State University