Verso uno "European Citation Index for the Humanities". Che cosa possono fare i ricercatori per la comunicazione scientifica

As a matter of principle, to open publish is a tautology, because making a text public means to maximize the access to texts and documents; but in practice, the equivalence doesn't work. Why? The answer depends on a twofold tension: the first tension is the one between Science and Technology, that is, between on the one hand the research process and the needs of scientists, and on the other, technological possibilities and limits, depending on publishing media (printed paper, computers, the Internet and the Web). The second is the tension between cataloguing (classification) and selection, that means the tension between the need to archive the results of human research, and to make them accessible; and, when quantity grows and several restrictions come out, the need of selection. This article is a discussion of a recent initiative of the ESF, the "European Citation Index of the Humanities"; it aims at providing some elements for the authors to consider, seeking an answer to the first question.