Barschall WWW site Ann Okerson 17 Oct 1997 15:19 UTC
17 October 1997 To: ARL University Librarians and Directors From: M. A. Keller (Stanford) and Ann Okerson (Yale) Re: Gordon & Breach v. American Institute of Physics and American Physical Society The addresses of the web sites containing the entire texts of the decisions of Judge Leonard B. Sand of the U.S. Second District Court and the entire testimony of the witnesses at the trial before Judge Sand, along with links to some related sites are: http://barschall.stanford.edu and http://www.library.yale.edu/barschall The case of Gordon & Breach v. American Institute of Physics and American Physical Society is of wide interest to those who care about the creation and diffusion of scientific journals. In its assertions, arguments, and counterarguments can be found a microcosm of all the issues that plague scientists, librarians, and information producers at the end of this millennium. It is a rich trove of primary information provided for members of the academic and legal communities and the citizenry who are interested in the values and diffusion of scientific and scholarly communications against the backdrop of the 20th-century marketplace. The materials on these sites are from publicly available sources, including documents of the courts involved in the referenced legal actions. The materials are presented in the interests of informing the public discourse on the actions and related matters. We fully expect to add more materials from the U.S. trial and materials from the European trials as well. The sites are named to honor the memory of Henry Barschall, the distinguished physicist who conducted the research and reported the results of his research on the costs and impact factors of the journal literature in physics. The decisions of Judge Sand in the U.S. Second District Court and of two of the three European courts in which he, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Physical Society were sued by Gordon & Breach have supported his studies. Among others, the Association of Research Libraries honored him with a special citation, representing formally the admiration and respect he had earned from the global communities of research librarians and scientists. We invite your use of these materials and we request wide distribution of the announcement of the availability of the documentation of these cases. ---------------------- Michael A. Keller University Librarian; Director of Academic Information Resources; Publisher, HighWire press Stanford University 245 Green Library Stanford, CA 94305-6004 U.S.A. voice: 1-650-723-5553 fax: 1-650-725-4902 e-mail: makeller@sulmail.stanford.edu Ann L. Okerson Associate University Librarian for Collection Development & Management Yale University P. O. Box 208240, 130 Wall Street New Haven, CT 06520-8240 voice: 1-203-432-1764 fax: 1-203-432-8527 e-mail: Ann.Okerson@yale.edu URL: http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/alo.html