Sharing Knowledge: Scientific Communication - SSOAR

136 Olaf Ninnemann, Bernd Wegner
DTV available, will be useful and enable the partners in the extended network to
make their choice according to their special situation.
The role of USDC is to propagate the use of the database in Spain and to facilitate
the access to it. They have installed a national site server and regularly update
the database and new software releases. They have set up a task group for
stimulating the usage of the database by Spanish universities, research centres,
and libraries. A network structure for information in mathematics is in development,
integrating Zentralblatt MATH with national information offers. This
work is undertaken in co-operation mainly with CESGA (Centro de Supercomputación
de Galicia) and RSME (Real Sociedad Matemática Española). HMS
applies a methodology similar to that of the partner USDC in a different environment.
They are quite successful in establishing a Greek access consortium.
The EMS plays two roles in the project: It represents the end-user and gives a
pan-European framework to the project as a whole. In both roles, it is part of the
Project Management.
5 Some first achievements
The co-operation between the editorial centre of Zentralblatt in Berlin and its
external partners has been restricted by the current input and administration procedures
which were designed for a totally centralized workflow. Thus, the external
editorial partners need continued, extensive support from the collaborators
in Berlin in order to prevent bottlenecks in the workflow. One of these bottlenecks
was the reviewer database, which provides all information needed for
editors to assign papers to reviewers. Access from outside of the Zentralblatt
office in Berlin was previously impossible. This system has been redesigned and
installed on a platform which now allows for controlled access from outside.
Clearly, such a database cannot be made open for public access, but the authorized
partners can check the interests and the workload for every reviewer, they
can register papers to be assigned to the reviewer, and they can make changes in
the reviewer’s data in accordance with the centre in Berlin.
A long-standing problem was to increase the flexibility of the input system
for the database so as to be able to handle external input and to insert electronic
submissions more systematically. The current system has a highly sophisticated
structure with the aim to serve for a variety of different purposes. The input for
the mathematics database is one of them; however, this is not the highest priority.
Hence LIMES could not rely on a modification of the current system and had
to design a new one that is specifically related to Zentralblatt and suitable for
distributed users. A prototype for the new input system is available now and
ready for being tested in a first release.