Tim Brody's Institutional Archives Registry now organizes OAI-compliant archives by country, type (e.g. institutional, disciplinary, e-theses), and the software on which they are built. This is a very helpful innovation. Of course the registry continues to provide a graphic for each archive showing its growth over time. To mark the new plateau in functionality, Stevan Harnad has sent a message to several discussion lists calling on unregistered archives to register themselves.
(PS: Because no directory of OAI-compliant archives is as comprehensive or up-to-date as the DOAJ is for journals, I maintain a list of the better lists in order to help users find them all. Brody's registry, for example, offers better services, but fewer archives, than the other large lists. The largest at the moment seem to be the OAIster and UIUC lists. I support Harnad's call for registration, not to pick a favorite in the mix of lists but in order to get the benefit of Brody's useful tools for more and more of the existing archives. Why do we need a good list of all the OAI-compliant archives? Three reasons: (1) so that archives can register in one place and be assured that they will be noticed and harvested, (2) so that OAI service providers can learn which archives are eligible for harvesting, and (3) so that authors can learn where they may deposit their work.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/22/2004 05:28:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
