Friday, July 13, 2001

Pioneer in Electronic Scholarly Publishing Leaves Los Alamos, With Archive in Tow By FLORENCE OLSEN The researcher who created an electronic archive that revolutionized how physicists communicate with one another is leaving the Los Alamos National Laboratory for Cornell University -- and he's taking the archive with him. Paul H. Ginsparg will leave New Mexico in August to become a professor of physics and computer science at Cornell, where he will join the new Faculty of Computing and Information Science. Supporters of Mr. Ginsparg's "e-print archive" say they hope the move will ensure its future. Many physicists now publish their research on the Los Alamos archive before submitting it to peer-reviewed print journals. "The whole thing has wanted to expand to a much bigger, natural size" than was feasible at the Los Alamos lab, Mr. Ginsparg said, in an interview conducted by e-mail. Cornell's library, which is involved in similar digital projects, will manage the archive as a special collection, "giving it long-term stability," he said. An article in the July 5 issue of Nature said that Mr. Ginsparg was leaving Los Alamos because his work was unappreciated by senior staff members. Mr. Ginsparg called the article "an unfortunate exercise in tasteless journalism." He said salary issues were "irrelevant" to his decision to leave Los Alamos in favor of Cornell, where he earned a physics Ph.D. in August 1981. With the move to Ithaca, N.Y., Mr. Ginsparg said, he's "getting ready in advance for my daughter's schooling" and locating closer to his sister and her family. His departure also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the physics archive, begun in August 1991. "I've checked with a Chinese astrologer, who assures me this will be an auspicious confluence of events," he said. Senior staff members at Los Alamos have been "open-minded" about various forms for pure science research, Mr. Ginsparg said. But, he added, the archive was never central to the primary mission of the lab, which is designing weapons and safeguarding the nation's nuclear stockpile. Los Alamos is operated by the University of California. William H. Press, deputy director of the national lab, said Los Alamos and Cornell have discussed future collaborations that will involve Mr. Ginsparg and Rick Luce, the library director at Los Alamos. "We're sorry to see Paul leave Los Alamos, but proud to have been the birthplace of his revolution in the way scientists communicate," Mr. Press said. Mr. Press said Cornell had created for Mr. Ginsparg "the opportunity to continue to the next peak." At Cornell, the archive will be studied by information-science researchers. "Paul brings a vast firsthand knowledge about one of the most significant events in the growth of the field of information science," said Robert L. Constable, dean of Cornell's computing and information-science faculty. Scientists all over the world can post drafts of their research articles on the Los Alamos archive server before, or sometimes instead of, submitting them to traditional scientific journals. The electronic "preprints" are automatically archived and indexed for retrieval by other scientists who often provide immediate feedback online. Many researchers credit Mr. Ginsparg with revolutionizing the way physicists and other scientists share their research. The preprint database that he created at Los Alamos started "a major rethinking of the role of libraries, publishing houses, and scholarly societies," said James S. Langer, past president of the American Physical Society. "It's a big revolution, and nobody knows where it's going to settle out." Marc H. Brodsky, executive director of the American Institute of Physics, said Mr. Ginsparg "has done something quite innovative in creating the preprint database." In high-energy physics and other fields of theoretical physics, he said, it is the most-cited source of articles. The archive has expanded beyond physics to include research in mathematics, nonlinear sciences, and computer science. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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