eScholarship Repository Launched

On April 3rd an important new component of the eScholarship program was launched by the CDL.  The eScholarship Repository [http://repositories.cdlib.org/] stores and distributes working papers authored or sponsored by faculty from the University of California.  Searching and viewing the content is open to everyone.  The initial focus is on the humanities and social sciences.

Readers can, at no charge, discover and view relevant research by topic, author, or sponsoring research department with the site’s straightforward organization and search tools.  The system also allows users to sign up for a service alerting them to new content in their specific areas of interest.

Built under a co-development partnership with the Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress), the tools behind the eScholarship Repository improve the speed and efficiency of sharing the results of scholarly efforts.  For participating scholars, departments, and research institutes, publishing working papers is greatly streamlined.  The submission, processing, and dissemination of papers is managed through a simple web interface, the bepress EdiKit system.

The repository is the result of discussions with many ORUs and departments throughout the system.  The CDL is grateful to library colleagues throughout UC who helped in identifying needs and talking with scholars, starting with focus groups held in 1998-99.  The repository opens with early-adopter social science research units at UC Berkeley and UCLA.  The Berkeley Olin Program in Law and Economics, Institute of Industrial Relations, Institute of Business and Economic Research, Institute of Transportation Studies, and others are moving existing working paper series to the repository as well as using it to publish new scholarship.  The eScholarship Repository will also be the first stop for papers in the University of California International and Area Studies (UCIAS) peer-reviewed ePublications Program, an eScholarship initiative launched last year (http://escholarship.cdlib.org/ias.html).

In addition to authors’ desire for new ways to disseminate and ensure the longevity of their work, the repository meets readers’ needs for reliable tracking of the evolution of a work.  The repository accommodates that need by maintaining links and citations for previous or later versions of any material posted.

The repository represents an important component of the CDL’s eScholarship program, whose mission is to facilitate and support scholar-led innovations in scholarly communication.

The eScholarship staff are visiting each campus library in the next several months.  Please watch for announcements of information sessions associated with those visits or take a look at the escholarship website at escholarship.cdlib