[Forwarding from the University of California & Sparc Open Access Forum]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 24, 2005
Jennifer Colvin, California Digital Library (510) 287-3384
jennifer.colvin_at_ucop.edu
UC LAUNCHES POSTPRINTS SERVICE TO PROVIDE GREATER ACCESS TO UC SCHOLARSHIP
Access to previously published articles written by UC faculty will be
available free online
The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication today
announced the public launch of its new eScholarship postprints service.
Scholars have been increasingly seeking new ways to distribute the results
of their research, and postprints -- peer-reviewed articles that have been
previously published in academic journals -- have recently been at the
center of this movement to reshape scholarly publishing. The new
eScholarship postprints service provides scholars with another option for
regaining control of their scholarship and maximizing its availability and
influence.
In addition, the academic community and general public gain an
unprecedented opportunity to study the published results from the research
happening at all UC campuses and research centers. The repository can be
accessed free at <
http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship>.
Added to the existing array of eScholarship Repository publishing services,
which include working paper series and online journals, the postprints
feature allows UC faculty who have retained the appropriate copyrights or
who obtain permission from their publishers to easily deposit previously
published articles into a publicly accessible online repository.
The postprints are fully searchable, available free of charge, and are
persistently maintained in a centrally managed database. The established
popularity of the repository, with more than one million full-text
downloads of content since 2002, makes it an ideal venue for faculty to
reach new audiences of researchers.
Public access to scholarly research
Increasingly, universities are establishing institutional repositories such
as the eScholarship Repository to disseminate research results. In a
parallel development, both public and private funders are requesting or
requiring public access to the results of research that they fund. Congress
has recognized the importance of open-access to taxpayer-funded published
research by instructing the National Institutes of Health to encourage
grant recipients to deposit published articles into another open-access
database, PubMed Central.
"The eScholarship postprint service gives UC faculty an important new
opportunity to manage their peer-reviewed research publications so they can
be accessed worldwide by anyone with an Internet connection," said George
Blumenthal, chair of UC's Universitywide Academic Senate and a professor of
astronomy and astrophysics. "This kind of broad access is vital to
scholarly communication and to the formation and support of global research
and learning communities."
The repository has allowed many UC faculty to extend the dissemination and
influence of their research.
William R. Schonfeld, a professor of political science and director of the
Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine, said "the eScholarship
Repository has been an invaluable vehicle for sharing findings from our
center faculty and graduate fellows with a wide international audience.
After we joined the eScholarship Repository, we have seen the readership of
our paper series double each year."
Commitment to preserving scholarly information
However, the eScholarship program, established in 2000, is only partly
about access. It also demonstrates how seriously the University of
California takes its commitment to acting as steward over the vast well of
scholarly and cultural information that is produced by faculty, staff and
students, and acquired or created by its libraries and museums.
"These materials form a significant part of the scholarly and cultural
record," said M.R.C. Greenwood, University of California provost and senior
vice president for academic affairs. "They contribute directly to the
state's economic progress, educational advancement and cultural well-being.
"By providing access to these materials, UC can ensure its central position
in an evolving global marketplace for information and ideas. But their
value can only fully be realized if they persist through time. Only a
university is positioned to secure these assets in a way that will ensure
that they can be made accessible now and for future generations," she said.
UC faculty interested in joining the eScholarship Repository and depositing
papers via the new postprints service can find more information on the
eScholarship Repository Web site at
<
http://repositories.cdlib.org/escholarship/about.html>.
About the eScholarship Repository
The eScholarship Repository is a project of the University of California
Office of Scholarly Communication's eScholarship program
<
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/responses/escholarship.html>, which
was launched to facilitate innovation and support experimentation in the
production and dissemination of scholarship. The repository offers UC
departments, centers and research units direct control over the creation
and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship, from
pre-publication materials through journals and peer-reviewed series. The
Office of Scholarly Communication is housed in the California Digital Library.
About the California Digital Library
Through the use of technology and innovation, the California Digital
Library <
http://www.cdlib.org/> supports the assembly and creative use of
scholarship for the University of California libraries and the communities
they serve. Established in 1997 as a UC library, the California Digital
Library has become one of the largest digital libraries in the world.
# # #
For more news and information about the University of California, please
visit: www.universityofcalifornia.edu
Received on Thu Feb 24 2005 - 21:34:26 GMT