Physicists Thriving with Paperless Publishing
Heath B. O'Connell

TL;DR
This paper discusses the development and impact of paperless publishing and digital libraries in high energy physics, highlighting the SPIRES-HEP database and the Los Alamos E-print archives as pioneering efforts.
Contribution
It introduces the first comprehensive digital database for high energy physics literature and examines its influence on research practices and publishing trends.
Findings
Over 400,000 articles indexed in SPIRES-HEP
Nearly 50% of articles linked to full-text electronic versions
70% of papers eventually published in journals
Abstract
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) libraries have been comprehensively cataloguing the High Energy Particle Physics (HEP) literature online since 1974. The core database, SPIRES-HEP, now indexes over 400,000 research articles, with almost 50% linked to fulltext electronic versions (this site now has over 15 000 hits per day). This database motivated the creation of the first site in the United States for the World Wide Web at SLAC. With this database and the invention of the Los Alamos E-print archives in 1991, the HEP community pioneered the trend to "paperless publishing" and the trend to paperless access; in other words, the "virtual library." We examine the impact this has had both on the way scientists research and on paper-based publishing. The standard of work archived at Los Alamos is very high. 70% of papers are eventually…
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Taxonomy
TopicsResearch Data Management Practices · Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems · Scientific Computing and Data Management
