[BOAI] Building repositories that serve the world

[Armbruster, Chris]

Dear colleagues,

nothing serves the worldwide integration of science as much as open access to research results, particularly when dissemination is also fast (i.e. as preprint or upon publication). Fast and wide dissemination makes access equal, from the United States to South Africa and France to India, for knowledge from all countries and all researchers. 

However, which kind of repository infrastructure is most likely to serve the world? Be adopted by active researchers? Be cost-effective and of lasting value?

Please see a new article written by Laurent Romary and I, which is available for download:  http://ssrn.com/abstract=1425692 

Abstract
The current system of so-called institutional repositories, even if it has been a sensible response at an earlier stage, may not answer the needs of the scholarly community, scientific communication and accompanied stakeholders in a sustainable way. However, having a robust repository infrastructure is essential to academic work. Yet, current institutional solutions, even when networked in a country or across Europe, have largely failed to deliver. Consequently, a new path for a more robust infrastructure and larger repositories is explored to create superior services that support the academy. A future organisation of publication repositories is advocated that is based upon macroscopic academic settings providing a critical mass of interest as well as organisational coherence. Such a macro-unit may be geographical (a coherent national scheme), institutional (a large research organisation or a consortium thereof) or thematic (a specific research field organising itself in the domain of publication repositories).
The argument proceeds as follows: firstly, while institutional open access mandates have brought some content into open access, the important mandates are those of the funders and these are best supported by a single infrastructure and large repositories, which incidentally enhances the value of the collection (while a transfer to institutional repositories would diminish the value). Secondly, we compare and contrast a system based on central research publication repositories with the notion of a network of institutional repositories to illustrate that across central dimensions of any repository solution the institutional model is more cumbersome and less likely to achieve a high level of service. Next, three key functions of publication repositories are reconsidered, namely a) the fast and wide dissemination of results; b) the preservation of the record; and c) digital curation for dissemination and preservation. Fourth, repositories and their ecologies are explored with the overriding aim of enhancing content and enhancing usage. Fifth, a target scheme is sketched, including some examples. In closing, a look at the evolutionary road ahead is offered. 

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1425692

Kind regards,

Chris Armbruster
Executive Director, Research Network 1989
http://www.cee-socialscience.net/1989/ 

Publications and working papers available in Open Access
http://ssrn.com/author=434782 
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