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Second try

Its better to cut and paster rather than attach. Here is the second try.
H.


<H1> IUCr Triennial Report 1999 - 2002 - Committee on Electronic
Publishing, Dissemination and Storage of Information</H1>


<P>
In the triennium 1999 - 2002, the Committee on Electronic Publishing,
Dissemination and Storage of Information (EPC) constituted a small and
very active working group. Following the unanimous proposition of the
CEP, the IUCr's executive committee appointed Dr. Simon Parsons of the
University of Edinburgh, UK to the CEP on the 9th May 2001. S. Parsons
has accepted the responsibility of the day-to-day running of
<I>Crystallography Online</I>, the IUCr's information service.


<P>
Members of the CEP attended the following meetings in the triennium:
<UL>

<LI> H. D. Flack visited the IUCr editorial office in Chester, UK in
November 1999.

<LI> Y. Epelboin attended the ICSTI/ICSU Press interactive workshop on
<I>Digital Archiving: Bringing Issues and Stakeholders Together</I>,
held on 30th - 31st January 2000 in Paris, France. H. D. Flack also
attended as ICSTI representative.

<LI> P. Strickland and B. McMahon attended the annual ICSTI meeting and
visited CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) in Columbus, Ohio, USA in May
2000.  H. D. Flack also attended as ICSTI representative.

<LI> H. D. Flack visited the IUCr editorial office in Chester, UK in
November 2000.

<LI> Y. Epelboin, H. D. Flack, B. McMahon and P. Strickland attended the
UNESCO/ICSU Press Conference on Electronic Publishing in Science held at
UNESCO, Paris, 20th - 23rd February 2001. J. Helliwell also attended.

<LI> S. Parsons visited the IUCr editorial offices, Chester, UK in May
2001.

<LI> P. Strickland, attended the presentation of the <I>ingenta</I>
study <I>Research into the Relationship between Journal Subscriptions
and Document Delivery and the Impact of Online Delivery on Article
Distribution</I> in London, UK, 25th September 2001. 

<LI> H. D. Flack visited the IUCr editorial offices, Chester, UK, in
early November 2001.

<LI> B. McMahon attended a meeting <I>XML use in Chemistry</I> in
Cambridge, UK, January 2002

<LI> Y. Epelboin attended the seminar on <I>Digital Preservation of the
record of Science - state of the art</I>, UNESCO, Paris, France, 14th -
15th February 2002. H. D. Flack also attended as ICSTI representative.

<LI> P. Strickland gave a short presentation on the IUCr's experience in
selling journals to library consortia at a meeting of the Association of
Learned and Professional Society Publishers in London, UK on the 19th
February 2002.


</UL>


The meeting attendances of the CODATA and ICSTI representatives, whose
work is so closely related to that of the CEP, are recorded in their
individual reports. 


<P>
<I>Crystallography Journals Online</I>:
Until mid-March 1999 the IUCr editorial office continued the project
with Munksgaard to provide an online version of <I>Acta
Crystallographica D</I> on their Synergy server operated by Healthgate.
As a consequence of these trials it was decided to develop an entirely
in-house system which was successfully launched for all six journals at
the IUCr Congress in Glasgow in August 1999. The development of this
system was achieved in about three months, largely because of the
substantial infrastructure already in place at the Chester offices, and
as a result of the systematic and thoughtful development of the
computer-based workflow built on top of previous investment in equipment
and personnel. Subsequently an e-mail alerting service was put into
operation and <I>Acta Crystallographica C</I> is now being prepared in
SGML. From 1st September 2000 online access was limited only to
subscribers of the print journals. The IUCr has become a member of
<I>CrossRef</I> enabling article cross referencing between journals of
different publishers to be implemented. Individual online article sale
was put into service during 2000. During 2000 a policy document
concerning the archiving of IUCr journals was drafted and after
presentation and discussion by all the interested parties was approved
the executive committee on the 18th July 2001.  The participation of H.
D. Flack and B. McMahon in an ICSTI review of the OAIS (Open Archival
Information System) enabled both improvements in the archiving policy
document during the discussion stage and improved understanding of the
modelisation and conceptualisation of archiving and preservation. For
the Glasgow 1999 Congress experience had been gained in the scanning of
documents for the preparation of a CD-ROM containing the congress
abstracts and other material. The executive committee approved the
project to scan the back numbers of all IUCr journals. This project
continued throughout the triennium and  in November 2001 all back
numbers were made available online to subscribers 6 weeks ahead of
schedule. The CEP has also given attention to ways of improving the
sales of IUCr journals to consortia of libraries. The IUCr's
participation in an <I>ingenta</I> study and developments in the field
of crystalline phase descriptors are treated in the report of the
representative to ICSTI. Attention has also been given, in collaboration
with the General Editor of the IUCr journals, to the questions
concerning pre-prints and final publications, the acceptability of
pre-print manuscripts for journal publication, peer review (its
operation and confidentiality), and the usefulness of a pre-print
service for crystallography. There appears to be only very modest
interest in the establishment of a preprint server for crystallography.


<P>
<I>Crystallography On-line</I>: The CEP holds the editorial powers for
IUCr web services. Within the triennium their information content has
been very regularly updated and this task is still perceived as being of
a very high priority worthy of investment in time and resources. The
rebranding and restructuring of the site, as a preliminary for the
restyling of the existing pages, has been completed to be in tune with
<I>Crystallography Journals Online</I>. The style and structure of
Crystallography Online emphasizes the different aspects of
crystallography and projects of the community rather than the IUCr as an
institution. In May 2001 the task of day-to-day maintenance of
<I>Crystallography Online</I> passed from H. D. Flack to S. Parsons. As
part of the changeover, a set of detailed maintenance instructions was
prepared for the incoming editor. The changeover proceeded very smoothly
indeed. Some preparatory work and discussions on the restyling of
<I>Crystallography Online</I> have taken place. As part of this activity
consideration has been given to the status and future role of the
<I>Crystallography On-line</I> mirror sites. A questionnaire was
subsequently sent to those responsible for maintaining the mirror sites
to obtain information and sound out opinion on matters such as
advertising, perceived necessity of continuing with mirrors, and
infrastructure at mirror sites. During the triennium more efficient
software for mirror-site updating was installed. As part of
<I>Crystallography On-line</I> discussion forums are provided by means
of list-server software but these are only very lightly used.



<P>
<I>World Directory of Crystallographers 11</I>: A functional
specification for a new implementation of WDC as a relational database
using technology parallel to, but not directly integrated into the
IUCr-editorial-office production database was completed. Due to a heavy
workload on the R&D staff in Chester it was not possible to proceed to
an working implementation straightaway. The new online interface of WDC
11 was launched in mid-December 2001 leading to a temporary overload on
the server which are successfully reconfigured. The effort of the
regional editors in verifying new entries is greatfully acknowledged. At
present there is still a steady stream of new entries and over 5000
people have logged in or created new entries. A printed version of the
directory is planned to be produced in late 2002. 


<P>
<I>NeXus CD-ROM</I>: Under the continued leadership of L. M. D.
Cranswick larger scale productions of the <I>Xtal NeXus; Virtual
Crystallographic Internet on CD-ROM</I> have been undertaken. These
CD-ROMs are distributed free of charge to laboratories and scientists
with an interest in crystallography lacking adequate connection to the
internet. The CD-ROMs contain public domain software and copies of web
sites of interest to crystallographers. Both in 2000 and 2001, 1000
copies of the NeXus CD-ROM were produced and distributed through our
established distribution channels. Previously these CD-ROMs had been
produced on a one-by-one basis on request. In 2000 we received funding
for this project from ICSU but this support was terminated due to a
major change in ICSU policy. The CEP wishes to thanks the IUCr's
executive committee for having provided all the finance for the NeXus
CD-ROMs in 2001. The CEP intends to continue with the NeXus project in
the coming triennium.


<P>
<I>The Future</I>:
It is evident that over the past years in the field of electronic
publishing, the IUCr has put a considerable effort into its journals and
into its online news service provided by <I>Crystallography Online</I>.
It would seem that the moment has come when thought and effort should be
directed towards other aspects of the IUCr's publishing  and information
dissemination activities. Opportunities exist in the use of multimedia
techniques that have been insufficiently exploited up to now. The
perenity and adaptability of software is also another area of concern.
It is also essential to continue to stay abreast of developments and
opportunities in the preservation of digital information.


<P>
The CEP has hence a continuing role to play within the IUCr. All of its
current members are prepared to continue to excercise their best efforts
if this is required. It is of the greatest use that the IUCr's
representatives to CODATA and ICSTI are members of the CEP and we
recommend that this practice be continued. As written in the report of
the representative to ICSTI it is suggested that the Executive Committee
propose the IUCr's managing editor P. Strickland to become the
representative to ICSTI. It should be made clear that under this
arrangement the chair of the CEP wishes also to have the opportunity to
attend ICSTI and CODATA meetings from time to time according to
situation and content. Contrary to the firm assertion made to the
Executive Committee in Glasgow, H. D. Flack is now prepared to continue
as chair of the CEP for a very definitely final three-years period if
this is deemed to be necessary and desirable.


<P>
L. M. D. Cranswick, Y. Epelboin, H. D. Flack (Chair), B. McMahon, S.
Parsons, P. Strickland. 27th May 2002.






-- 
VISITING GENEVA? See http://www.unige.ch/crystal/ahdf/geneva02.html

Howard Flack        http://www.unige.ch/crystal/ahdf/Howard.Flack.html

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