Frequently asked questions

For more complete instructions on using E-LIS, see E-LIS help. For more general questions in relation to depositing ones papers in open archives see Self-archiving FAQ at Eprints.org.

• What is E-LIS and why an open archive for LIS?
• Who are the partners?
• Who maintains E-LIS?
• What is the Open Archives Initiative (OAI)?
• What is an open archive?
• What are e-prints?
• Is E-LIS an OAI-compliant Eprint archive?
• What is self-archiving?
• How are E-LIS contents accessibile?
• Why would I want to deposit my work in the E-print Archive?
• Must I register on E-LIS to view or download materials there?
• What about the software for E-LIS?
• Who is hosting the server?
• How often is a Back-up run?
• Who can submit e-prints to E-LIS?
• Can I submit an e-print of another author to E-LIS?
• What types of submissions are accepted?
• Can I submit my preprint to the server?
• Will the E-LIS staff revise or edit submitted materials?
• What about copyright?
• If I post a preprint or preliminary item on E-LIS and then publish it, or a revised edition is published in a journal or volume, can the item remain on E-LIS?
• Which languages are supported by E-LIS?
• After an e-print is deposited on E-LIS, how soon will it become available to the public?
• Which file formats can I use for submitting an e-print?
• Can I remove my e-print from the archive?
• Can I modify the metadata of my e-prints?
• Which classification schema is used?
• What if I have more questions?

What is E-LIS and why an open archive for LIS?

E-prints for Library and Information Science (E-LIS) is an international open access archive for e-prints related to Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and related application disciplines, in keeping with the objectives of the EPrints movement and the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) movement.The purpose of E-LIS archive is to make full text LIS documents visible, accessible, harvestable, searchable, and useable by any potential user with access to the Internet. Furthermore, this service aims to support individuals who wish to publish or otherwise make their papers available worldwide. Open access to LIS papers and their dissemination can also support the building of international LIS networks.

Currently, the library and information world is strongly integrated with the areas of computing science and technology. Moreover, institutional metadata creation proves costly, while a more effective means is provided via the growing trend of authors' self archiving in the framework of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI). A flexible architecture of data and service providers based on metadata harvesting allows authors to store a copy of their documents in a personal or institutional archive thereby enabling the documents to become quickly available worldwide.

Who are the partners?

E-LIS has been established as a community service by RCLIS (Research in Computing, Library and Information Science) and DoIS (Documents in Information Science) to promote open access to papers in these fields. RCLIS is a project to build a database of current and past documents in Computing, Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and related application activities. Its aim is to extend and update DoIS, a service for finding and downloading articles and conference proceedings published in electronic format in the area of Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and related application activities. See Supporting organizations page.

Who maintains E-LIS?

An international team of librarians maintains E-LIS. E-LIS is different from similar initiatives because it is based on voluntary work. For more information see E-LIS Staff.

What is the Open Archives Initiative (OAI)?

The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) has designed a shared code for metadata tags (e.g., "date," "author," "title," "journal" etc.). See more information on OAI FAQ. The full-text documents may be in different formats and locations, but if they use the same metadata tags they become "interoperable." Their metadata can be "harvested " and all the documents can then be jointly searched and retrieved as if they were all in one global collection, accessible to everyone.

What is an open archive?

An Open Archive is a collection of digital documents. OAI-compliant Eprint Archives share the same metadata, making their contents interoperable with one another. Their metadata can then be harvested into global "virtual" archives that are seamlessly navigable by any user (just as a commercial index or abstract database is navigable, but with full-text access). See more information on Open Access Overview by Peter Suber.

What are e-prints?

E-prints are the digital texts of peer-reviewed research articles, before and after the referee process. E-prints include pre-prints and postprints. A pre-print is a draft copy preceding refereeing and publication. A postprint is the refereed and published final document.

Is E-LIS an OAI-compliant Eprint archive?

Yes, E-LIS is compliant with the Open Archive Initiative (OAI), which enables your preprint to be found by any search engine using this protocol to index distributed preprint archives. OAI-compliance means using the OAI metadata tags. A document can be OAI-compliant and an Eprint archive can be OAI-compliant. All OAI-compliant documents in OAI-compliant archives are interoperable. This means distributed documents can be treated as if they were all in one place and in one format.

What is self-archiving?

To self-archive is to deposit a digital document in a publicly accessible website, preferably an OAI-compliant Eprint Archive. Depositing involves a simple web interface where the depositer copy/pastes in the "metadata" (date, author-name, title, journal-name, etc.) and then attaches the full-text document. Software is also being developed to allow documents to be self-archived in bulk, rather than one by one.

How are E-LIS contents accessibile?

The service is accessible in two complementary ways. First, a search engine is provided to seek the bibliographic descriptions. Second, browsable views are available by subject, author and editor, book and journal, year and country. Browsing and searching are anonymous. If you wish to submit a work, you must first register. To use the subscription service you will also need to register. There is no charge to register or to use any service on this archive.

Why would I want to deposit my work in the E-print Archive?

The archive is built around the standards of The Open Archives Initiative, ensuring that research submitted is shared with and contributes to a growing global network of distributed, interoperable, institutional archives.

Authors who contribute to an e-print archive are participating in a global effort by universities, researchers, libraries, publishers, editors, and readers to redefine the mechanisms of scholarly research. This e-print archive will make LIS research more visible, available, and relevant, which in turn increases its visibility, status, and public value. See Copyright issues for more information.

Must I register on E-LIS to view or download materials there?

No, you only need to register if you want to deposit materials or if you want to receive regularly scheduled e-mail notification of new submissions to the archive. More information on how to register in E-LIS.

What about the software for E-LIS?

E-LIS site is running on open source software. The archive is based on GNU EPrints archive-creating software. Eprints was established by Stephen Harnad at the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, England. The current version, GNU EPrints 2, was designed and coded by Christopher Gutteridge with the collaboration of Mike Jewell and Al Riddoch and is available for free.GNU EPrints is Free Software, that is freely usable, modifiable, and redistributable software, together with the source code, following the GNU General Public License. The software systems deployed by GNU EPrints, such as Apache and MySQL, are Free Software as well.

Who is hosting the server?

The server is hosted by AEPIC team on machines of the Italian Consorzio Interuniversitario Lombardo per Elaborazione Automatica (CILEA) at Segrate (Milano, Italy). CILEA, Consorzio Interuniversitario Lombardo per L'Elaborazione Automatica, is a non-profit organization pooling nine Universities in the Lombardia region in Italy. It provides Information Technology services on behalf of Universities and related organizations, public organizations, and enterprises. It also provides professional advice for both the planning and dissemination of advanced technologies in the fields of high performance computing, networking services, and informatics.

How often is a Back-up run?

A full back-up is run every week (usually Tuesday night) and an incremental back-up is run everyday.

Who can submit e-prints to E-LIS?

E-LIS is an international repository, so anyone in LIS can submit materials. There are no formal restrictions. However, all persons submitting materials must register.

Can I submit an e-print of another author to E-LIS?

The depositor should be the author/one of the authors of the e-print. E-LIS Staff, in certain cases, can be available for the deposit of documents of others who agree to permit the deposit by the E-LIS Staff and if there is agreement with the possible publisher of the work. For work being deposited by someone other than its author see submission policy in E-LIS.

What types of submissions are accepted?

E-LIS archive accepts any scientific or technical document, published or unpublished, in Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and related application disciplines. The criteria for acceptance are that the eprints are relevant to research in LIS fields and that they have the form of a finished document that is ready to be entered into a process of communication. Publications may include: preprints, postprints, conference papers, conference posters, presentations, books, book chapters, technical reports/departmental working papers, theses, and newspaper and magazine articles.

Can I submit my preprint to the server?

E-LIS accepts preprints, and other non-refereed materials, which often are in preliminary stages. The purpose of this archive service is to facilitate communication between librarians and researchers in LIS and related fields. The work will be widely read and highly visible. Depositing a preprint in E-LIS can contribute to the revision of that paper for later publication by attracting critical comments. Comments can be made directly to the depositing author, who's contact details are in the archive.

Will the E-LIS staff revise or edit submitted materials?

Submitted documents will be placed into our "submission buffer", where they may be approved by the E-LIS Staff, rejected, or returned to the author for modifications in the metadata or if there are problems with the electronic file. Documents in the submission buffer are manually reviewed to confirm they fit our policy before adding them to E-LIS. E-LIS staff controls the metadata quality of the document and are allowed to make changes if the metadata are incorrect.

What about copyright?

The author holds the copyright for the pre-refereeing preprint, so that can be self-archived without seeking anyone else's permission. For the refereed postprint, the author can try to modify the copyright transfer agreement to allow self-archiving, or, failing that, can append or link a corrigenda file to the already self-archived preprint. See " Is self-archiving legal? ," "What if the publisher forbids self-archiving the preprint? " and the Rights Metadata for Open archiving Project and Directory of Journals' Policies on Author Self-Archiving . See more information on copyright policy in E-LIS.

If I post a preprint or a preliminary item on E-LIS and then publish it, or a revised edition is published in a journal or volume, can the item remain on E-LIS?

Individual journal policies vary on this question. Whatever the policy, the authoritative document is the copyright agreement you sign with the publisher. If that agreement requires you to remove the posted preprint, you should. However, many publishers are adapting to the changing environment of electronic publishing. For example, Elsevier, the publisher of such journals as International Information and Library Review or Library and Information Science Research, states that contributors to its journals have

"...the right to retain a preprint version of the article on a public electronic server such as the World Wide Web. Elsevier Science does not require that authors remove from publicly accessible servers versions of their paper that differ from the version as published by Elsevier Science."

See more information on Publisher copyright policies and self-archiving of the RoMEO Project where you can find a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement

Which languages are supported by E-LIS?

All languages are supported. But if the document is in a language other than English, an English abstract and keywords in English must be included.

After an e-print is deposited on E-LIS, how soon will it become available to the public?

As soon as it is approved by the E-LIS Staff it will become available. When a document is deposited, it immediately gets sent to our "submission buffer" where a staff member decides whether the document meets E-LIS quality standards. The paper is then publicly accessible via a search, though it may not appear immediately in the "browse tree".

Which file formats can I use for submitting an e-print?

The following document formats are allowed: PDF, PostScript, Tex, LaTeX (DVI), HTML, XML, ASCII (text), PowerPoint, MS Word DOC and RTF. HTML and PDF formats are strongly recommended. Do not submit publisher produced PDF or other published format versions.

Can I remove my e-print from the archive?

Yes, although the intent of the Archive is to preserve and globally share peer-reviewed research material created by LIS researchers. Removal of material disrupts this intent. The software does not allow authors to remove papers automatically. However, a request for removal will be considered. .

Can I modify the metadata of my e-prints?

No, the software does not allow authors to modify the metadata automatically. The repository guarantees a validation of registered data of the e-prints. If you need to change any information in the metadata you need to contact E-LIS Staff.

Which classification schema is used?

The Subject Tree adopted is JITA Classification Schema. It has been built for E-LIS on the basis of NewsAgentTopic Classification Scheme and RIS Classification Schema.

What if I have more questions?

For more complete instructions on using E-LIS, see E-LIS help user documentation. If you cannot find the information you require, or if you have any comments or suggestions as to how we may improve E-LIS service, please send an e-mail to E-LIS Staff at the following address: eprints@dois.it.