A Scholarly Communication Tool For the 21 st Century

Increasing cost of journal subscriptions* Increasing cost of journal subscriptions* From : Total expenditures up 273% Unit cost (per title) up 188% Increasing number of journals published Increasing number of journals published Total number of journals purchased Total number of journals purchased remained constant or decreased * Source: “Monograph and Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries, : graph 2” in ARL Statistics Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2005.

Increasing cost of scholarly books* Increasing cost of scholarly books* From : Unit cost (per title) up 77% Total expenditures up 63% Increasing number of books published Increasing number of books published Total number of books purchased Total number of books purchased remains below 1986 levels * Source: “Monograph and Serial Expenditures in ARL Libraries, : graph 2” in ARL Statistics Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2005.

E-journals and e-books are not cheaper!

Library budgets have not kept up with Library budgets have not kept up with book and journal cost increases : Increase:  5% per year UConn: No increase 2 of last 5 years So…  Libraries cut journal subscriptions  Libraries buy fewer books

What does this decrease in library purchasing mean for faculty members and researchers? Less access to current research Less visibility of your research

Solutions Solutions Governments: National and international support for “open access” Governments: National and international support for “open access” Scholars/Authors: Pre-print archives, individual web sites Scholars/Authors: Pre-print archives, individual web sites Libraries: SPARC (lower-cost journals), institutional repositories Libraries: SPARC (lower-cost journals), institutional repositories

“…an electronic repository of the intellectual output of the University of Connecticut community, and [it] represents a way for UConn to organize, store and preserve its research in digital form in a single unified location” -- Jonathan Nabe, UConn Libraries

Published materials Published materials Journal articles Book chapters Invited papers Technical reports Research reports Unpublished materials Working papers Conference papers Conference presentations Educational support materials Guest lectures Department colloquia Data sets

The only requirements? Materials are in electronic format: PDFMPEG MS WordJPEG/GIF/TIFF TeX/LaTeXQuickTime HTML/XML…and so on! Materials must be connected to UConn Materials must be connected to UConn

How can help you? Access – available via the Internet, for free! Access – available via the Internet, for free! Visibility – materials are picked up by Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines Visibility – materials are picked up by Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines Stability – all UConn materials in one place, with permanent URLs Stability – all UConn materials in one place, with permanent URLs

Flexibility – you decide what materials you will include, how they will be arranged, and how you will “brand” your content Flexibility – you decide what materials you will include, how they will be arranged, and how you will “brand” your content Long term preservation – preservation of content and format migration by the library Long term preservation – preservation of content and format migration by the library

is easy to use… The library coordinator sets up a community The library coordinator sets up a community Appoint a community administrator Appoint a community administrator Policy compliance Policy compliance Loading or monitoring submissions Loading or monitoring submissions Estimated time commitment: One hour per week Estimated time commitment: One hour per week Submissions require the file, title, author(s), date, and (optional) keywords &/or abstract Submissions require the file, title, author(s), date, and (optional) keywords &/or abstract

Next steps for joining Contact the library coordinator or your liaison Contact the library coordinator or your liaison Jonathan Nabe Liaison Name Decide on a community administrator Decide on a community administrator Begin submitting! Begin submitting!