Cornell University Library Engages More Institutions in Supporting arXiv

[Terry Ehling <ehling@cornell.edu>]

Cornell University Library Engages More Institutions in
Supporting arXiv

Collaborative Business Model Changes Funding Structure

ITHACA, N.Y. (Jan. 21, 2010) - In a move to expand support for
sustaining arXiv, Cornell University Library is broadening the
funding base for the online scientific repository. Nearly 600,000
e-prints - research articles published online in physics,
mathematics, statistics, computer science and related disciplines
- now reside in arXiv, which is an open information source for
hundreds of thousands of scientific researchers.

arXiv will remain free for readers and submitters, but the
Library has established a voluntary, collaborative business model
to engage institutions that benefit most from arXiv.

"Keeping an open-access resource like arXiv sustainable means not
only covering its costs, but also continuing to enhance its
value, and that kind of financial commitment is beyond a single
institution's resources," said Oya Rieger, Associate University
Librarian for Information Technologies. "If a case can be made
for any repository being community-supported, arXiv has to be at
the top of the list."

About 200 institutions use arXiv the most heavily and account for
more than 75 percent of institutional downloads. Cornell is
asking these institutions for financial support in the form of
annual contributions, and most of the top 25 have already
committed to helping arXiv.

Institutions that have already pledged support include:

* California Institute of Technology
* University of California, Berkeley
* University of Cambridge (UK)
* CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland)
* CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)
* Columbia University
* DESY - Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Germany)
* Durham University (UK)
* Fermilab
* Harvard University
* University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
* Imperial College London (UK)
* Los Alamos National Lab
* Massachusetts Institute of Technology
* Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Germany)
* University of Michigan
* University of Oxford (UK)
* University of Pennsylvania
* Princeton University
* Texas A&M University

"We are delighted that so many others have already stepped
forward to share the cost of arXiv, and that even more are
considering it," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University
Librarian at Cornell. "It is heartening to see other institutions
show their commitment to sustaining this eminent resource, which
is used by scientists around the world."

"arXiv is a vital resource for scholarly communication on a
global scale for researchers and students across numerous
disciplines. It is essential that the institutions whose users
contribute to the database and consume its content provide an
appropriate level of financial support," said James G. Neal, Vice
President for Information Services and University Librarian at
Columbia University.

The proposed funding model is viewed as a short-term strategy,
and the Library is actively seeking input on a long-term
solution. Currently, Cornell University Library supports the
operating costs of arXiv, which are comparable to the costs of
the university's collection budget for physics and astronomy. As
one of the most influential innovations in scholarly
communications since the advent of the Internet, arXiv's original
dissemination model represented the first significant means to
provide expedited access to scientific research well ahead of
formal publication.

Researchers upload their own articles to arXiv, and they are
usually made available to the public the next day. arXiv has
about 400,000 users and serves more than 2.5 million article
downloads per month. Its 101,000 registered submitters live in
nearly 200 countries.

arXiv is also interconnected with many other scholarly
information resources. These include the INSPIRE system being
developed by supporting high-energy physics laboratories CERN,
DESY, Fermilab and SLAC, as well as the Astrophysics Data System
at Harvard University, another supporting institution.

For details about the operating principles of the new structure,
visit the FAQ at http://arxiv.org/help/support/faq. For questions
about supporting arXiv, contact consortia representatives or the
arXiv office at Cornell University Library at support@arxiv.org.

About Cornell University Library

Cornell University is an Ivy League institution and New York's
land-grant university. Among the top ten academic research
libraries in the country, Cornell University Library reflects the
university's distinctive mix of eminent scholarship and
democratic ideals. The Library offers cutting-edge programs and
facilities, a full spectrum of services, extensive collections
that represent the depth and breadth of the university, and a
deep network of digital resources. Its impact reaches beyond
campus boundaries with initiatives that extend the land grant
mission to a global focus. To learn more, visit
<http://library.cornell.edu>.

terry ehling
scholarly communications strategist
library information technologies
project euclid | cornell university library
ithaca [ny] 14853