Editors' Frequently Asked Questions

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

The editors may help authors with depositing the documents.

What types of submission are accepted?

E-LIS accepts any scientific or technical document, published or unpublished, in Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and related application disciplines.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, thesis and news paper and magazine articles.

Will an editor revise or edit submitted materials?

Submitted e-prints will be placed into the 'submission buffer', where they can be either approved by editors, rejected outright or returned to the author for modifications in the metadata or problems with the e-print. E-prints in the 'submission buffer' are manually checked to validate if they fit our policy before adding them to E-LIS. The editors control the metadata quality of the document. They are allowed to correct them.

If an author posts a preprint and then publishes it in a journal or book, can the pre-print remain on E-LIS?

Individual journal policies vary on this question. It depends on the copyright agreement with the publisher. If that agreement requires the author to remove the posted preprint, the author should remove it. 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 with a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement

Which languages are supported in 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 editors it will become available. When a document is deposited, it immediately gets sent to the 'submission buffer' where the editors decide 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'.

The editors should approve the e-prints in no more than 48 hours.

Which file formats can authors 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.

Get more information on Preservation.

Can an author remove an e-print from the archive?

The intent of the E-LIS is to preserve and globally share peer-reviewed research material created by LIS authors. Removal of e-prints disrupts this intent. The software does not allow authors to remove e-prints automatically. However, an authors' request for removal will be considered by the editors.

Can an author modify the metadata of his/her e-prints?

The software doesn't allow authors to modify the metadata automatically. The repository guarantees a validation about registered data of the e-prints. The author needs to contact the editors.

Can an editor delete an e-print in the live archive?

An editor can under author's request. But the e-print could have another version in E-LIS, so the editor should delete the relation between them too. The editor has to find the other e-print and delete the ID code in 'Later Version of'.

What's the buffer?

This is a region in the archive where the newly-created records may be held for editors inspection to implement the institutional quality assurance policy. The aim of this is to improve the quality of the metadata (for example, ensuring names have been entered correctly, that no important data is missing, etc.) at the cost of some delay before the eprint record can be seen.

What are buffer e-mail alerts?

The editors will receive email notification that a new eprint is ready to be deposited. Who is responsible for making the final decision, the acceptable delay for checking, and the reasons for which records will be returned for correction is down to the policy of the E-LIS: every editor is allowed to approve the e-prints deposited by authors from their country. After review, the editors can deposit the eprint into the live archive, or return it to the authors' work area.

How can an editor know which e-prints to approve?

An editor is allowed to approve the e-prints deposited by authors from his/her country. Where the author is from is in the author's record.

How to approve an e-print?

The editor has to go to the buffer to check the metadata and full text. The editor can then use 'Move e-print in to Main Archive' to approve the e-print.

How to modify the e-print metadata?

Editing an eprint follows the exact same process as adding a new e-print.

The editor should go to 'Staff EPrint Search' and 'Staff Search of EPrints in the Live Archive'. Then search for the e-print, for example, by ID. Change what needs to be changed.

An editor changing the type of e-print could lead to problems. For example, an author has introduced a conference paper as a journal article. Accordingly, the field Publication (journal article's field) is filled. If the editor doesn't delete the content of this field when changing to the correct type of document (a conference paper in this case), the field Publication will remain filled.

How to modify the e-print metadata without changing the date of deposit?

First, the editor should identify the e-print with the mistake (for example, by using the ID)
Next, go to 'Staff EPrint Search' in his/her workspace and choose 'Staff Search of EPrints in the Live Archive'
Search for the e-print
The editor will see the metadata of the e-print as when it was approved. Go to 'edit e-print'
First screen 'Deposit type', modify the metadata (if necessary). Click 'Next'
Second screen 'Succession/Commentary', modify the metadata (if necessary). Click 'Next'
Third screen 'Bibliographic Information', modify the metadata (if necessary). Click 'Next'
Fourth screen 'Documents Attached to Item', modify the metadata (if necessary). After that just click 'Save for later'
The e-print should come back to the screen with all the metadata ready to be approved. Then the editor should click 'Go to the E-LIS User Area Homepage'
If the editor searches the e-print in the home page or by simple search, he/she will see the modifications with the date of deposit, not the date of when changes were made.

How to know the authors' country?

By using the 'User search', the editor can search by country using the 'Address/Country' option.

An editor detects a mistake in an e-print metadata in the live archive from another country

The editor should contact the Coordinator of editors.

An editor isn't sure if a pre-print should be included in E-LIS

The editor should contact the Coordinator of editors or can send an e-mail to the editors' list to be discussed.

An editor has deleted an e-print by mistake

When an e-print is deleted it doesn't disappear totally (except if it is deleted in the buffer space). The editor should go to 'Staff EPrint Search', and then 'Staff Search of Deleted EPrints'. The e-print will be there.

An editor has to delete an e-print

The same process 'to modify the e-print metadata' should be used. But in this case, use the option 'Move e-print to Deleted buffer'.

An editor views an e-print in live archive that isn't displayed correctly

The editor should wait 24 hours to view the e-print in its correct form (for example, if the abstract is there but it isn't displayed correctly: every night a script transforms the sign 'end of line' in < br >).

The resource is in more than one language

There are 4 different situations:
The same work available in multiple files (each in a different language, with the title in a different language) published in the same journal/book/etc.: the Parallel title will be used, preceding punctuation: Space, equal sign, space ( = ) in Title field.

A unique file that has the text in more than one language (e.g. a paragraph in English and another different one in French) published in the same journal/book/etc. In these situations, there will be the title in only one language (the title given on the document).

A unique file to be uploaded that contains the same text in more than one language (e.g. a first part in English and then the same text in French). In these situations, the Parallel title will be used, preceding punctuation: Space, equal sign, space ( = ) in Title field.

The same work available in multiple files (each in a different language, with the title in a different language) published in different journals/books/etc.: different records will be created for each file. The IDs should be linked using 'Later version of'.

... it is necessary to include the translator

E-LIS doesn't have a specific field for translators. It can be included using 'Abstract' to insert the translator's name (e.g. Translation by Carlo Bianchini).

... it is necessary to include more responsabilities

E-LIS doesn't have a specific field for supervisors or another kind of responsibilities. It can be included using 'Abstract' to insert the supervisor's name (e.g. Supervised by Charles Fairfield).

The author has deposited a book review

E-LIS doesn't have a specific type of document for book review. It can be included using 'Title' and 'Abstract' to insert the information that the document is a book review (e.g. Recensione a...).

An editor has a doubt

The editor should contact the Coordinator of editors.

How to Convert a file into PDF

It may be necessary to convert a document to Adobe PDF. For most electronic documents this is a simple process, although some specialized software may be needed:

Documents created in MS Word or other PC/Mac word processor programs can be converted to PDF using Adobe Acrobat (the commercial product, not the free Acrobat Reader).
- Copies of Acrobat and other commercial conversion software are available
Users running MacOS X or higher can print to a PDF file from any application without purchasing Acrobat.
Several low-priced or free PDF converters perform the same function as Adobe Acrobat.
- One widely used product is Click2PDF, from Blue Squirrel software.
- Adobe offers an online PDF conversion service. A free trial subscription allows up to 5 conversions or one can subscribe for a nominal fee.
- Cutepdf is freely available to download for PCs.

Special formatting issues: when the editors create a PDF file, they should pay special attention to the following:

Unusual fonts should be 'embedded' as TrueType or Postscript fonts to ensure proper viewing and printing.
When including color images in a PDF file, make sure they are readable when printed in black and white on letter-size paper.

For more information about PDF, see:

Special characters

E-LIS can have problems with some characters. At the moment, '<' and '>' can't be used in the description of metadata, except for References Field.

Full metadata

The full metadata page, with all the metadata given for the document deposited, is available to normal users the day after the e-print record is sent to the live archive, by clicking on 'All fields' in the record (if it's clicked before, the result is a 404-File not found page).

How Paratools works

Seek is an image that you can click. Then the data of the reference are sent to a parser which shows the document.

In the references without url, the system first searches in E-LIS. If the system doesn't find anything in E-LIS, it then sends the reference to http://paracite.eprints.org/cgi-bin/paracite.cgi . If the system finds the document in E-LIS, it shows the metadata of the reference in E-LIS.

In the references with url, the system first checks the url. If the url is correct, the system transfers to the web page. If the url isn't correct, the system searches in E-LIS and if the system doesn't find anything, it sends the reference to http://paracite.eprints.org/cgi-bin/paracite.cgi.

The search in E-LIS is done by year and author. http://paracite.eprints.org/cgi-bin/paracite.cgi is a free service that finds on the Internet documents using the references.