Prepublication copy submitted to Facet Publishing 16 September 2013 8 The Prospects of Open Access Repositories Karen Calhoun Cornell University Library (retired)
[email protected] Note: This is a preprint of a chapter whose final and definitive form was co-published in Exploring Digital Libraries: Foundations, Practice, Prospects by Facet Publishing (2014) and ALA Neal-Schuman (2014). Overview This chapter focuses on the potential of open access repositories for having a distinctive positive impact on scholarship and, more broadly, on their prospects for increasing the social and economic value of digital libraries. In addition to extending chapter 4’s discussion of open access repositories into new territory, it relates the frameworks presented in chapters 6 and 7 to this particular type of digital library. Topics include subject-based and institutional repositories and their value; issues around recruiting repository content, including deposit mandates; legal frameworks, copyright and open access; discipline-specific norms, practices and reward systems; the discoverability of scholarly content; sustainability of repositories; e-research data management; and prospects for the emergence of a global ecosystem of repositories. Successful subject-based repositories The most successful subject-based repositories have grown organically around the scholarly communities they serve (see the examples in chapters 2, 4, 6 and 7), and they are woven into the way their disciplines communicate. As Erway (2012) notes in her review of several thriving