This week, CaltechAUTHORS—the Institute's repository for research publications authored by Caltech faculty and other researchers—reached a landmark 50,000 entries since the archive launched in 2001. Professor of Physics Chris Martin's recent work, a paper titled "A giant protogalactic disk linked to the cosmic web," was the 50,000th entry.
CaltechAUTHORS now has more content than those of almost all other U.S. universities, including Harvard University, Duke University, and Washington University in Saint Louis. More than six million documents have been downloaded from the Caltech repository since the library began recording download totals in July 2008, shortly before the Faculty Board requested the library to document the Institute's output starting in March 2009.
"The six million downloads in just over seven years is a significant figure in the academic community, as is the 50,000 records," says engineering librarian George Porter. "Six million downloads is not the largest number of downloads for an institutional repository, but it compares favorably with many other institutions that are much, much larger than Caltech."
The large number of articles in the repository results from a collaboration between the faculty and the Caltech Library. Embracing the importance of the repository and its role in increasing the accessibility of scientific research, the faculty cooperates with the library to submit published papers and voted in 2013 to approve an Institute-wide open-access policy. Seventy-three percent of all materials in the repository are now open access.
In addition to facilitating new deposits, the library is also working to add capabilities to the repository that would be useful to researchers—such as storing other research materials and data sets in addition to publications.
"The digital repository is one of the many ways that the library is looking to preserve Caltech research materials for the long term and to increase the accessibility of Caltech research to a broader audience," Porter says.
Written by Jessica Stoller-Conrad