Integration of national publication databases – towards a high-quality and comprehensive information base on scholarly publications in Europe

The need for a comprehensive infrastructure for scholarly publication information has been on the EU’s agenda for a long time. Also, the European Commission’s open science policy highlights the necessity of a good information base to follow up open access publishing across Europe. However, an all-inclusive information infrastructure on research publications is still missing. During the past 10 years, European countries have invested significantly in national research information infrastructures. Now, at least 20 European countries have a national database for research publication metadata. The strength of these databases lies in their comprehensiveness and quality assurance since they often have a mandatory nature. They are, however, neither yet integrated nor widely used for cross- country comparisons. To this end, a proof of concept of a European publication infrastructure was carried out in the framework of ENRESSH (www.enressh.eu). The ENRESSH-VIRTA-PoC integrated publication data from four countries and the concept was built on the strengths of the Finnish national VIRTA system. This paper highlights the results from the PoC and outlines future steps towards the integration of national publication databases in Europe.

Francis Vernon, the Early Royal Society and the First English Encounter with Ancient Greek Architecture

Francis Vernon (c. 1637-77) is not a particularly well-known figure in the history of British architecture, but perhaps he should be. In 1675 he became one of the first English people to have set foot in Athens and, the following year, published what was undisputedly the first account in the English language of the city and its architecture. Vernon was a member of the recently founded Royal Society and one of a group of English and French travellers who journeyed through central Greece and Turkey in the 1670s. He was murdered in Isfahan in early 1677. Vernon's account of the time he spent in Athens was published in the Society's journal, thePhilosophical Transactions, in 1676, and it included brief but illuminating descriptions of the Erechtheion, the Temple of Hephaestus and the Parthenon, the latter written over ten years before the bombing of the temple by a Venetian army in 1687. TheTransactionsoften contained both travel writing and antiquarian material and, in this respect, Vernon's account was typical of the journal's somewhat eclectic content in its early years. Significantly, Vernon's publication predated more famous accounts of Greece from the period, such as those written by his travelling companions Jacob Spon (who released hisVoyage d'ltalie, de Dalamatie, de Grèce et du Levantin France in 1678) and George Wheler, whoseA journey into Greecewas published in 1682. Unlike Vernon, both Spon and Wheler survived their journeys. The only European publication on Athens that preceded Vernon's was a French text of 1675 that would prove to be a fabrication. As this article will demonstrate, Vernon's initial exposure of this fabrication was one of the reasons why his account of the city became so important in English intellectual culture at the time.

ON THE IDENTITY OF A SO-CALLED RACE OF PARNASSIUS SMINTHEUS FROM MANITOBA

In a recent number of the European publication Parnassiana (Vol. 111, p. 55) I was astonished to note that under the title “A Critical Revision of the Genus Parnassius based on Material in the Eisner Collection,” Messrs. Bryk and Eisner had described a race of P. smintheus with the subspecific name manitobaensis from “End Mountains, Manitoba.”As it appeared extremely problematic that Parnassius would turn up in Manitoba without rumours of the find reaching- Ottawa, I got in touch with several collectors in the province. From one, Mr. J. F. May of Norgate, Man. I received a reply that the specimens in question had been supplied by him but that they had been distinctly labelled “End Mountain, Alta.,” a locality I believe to be situated in the Banff region. Under these circumstances the name manitobaensis will sink into the synonymy of the typical race smintheus, as found in the Canadian Rockies.