[Air-L] arXiv Repository Hits Milestone

[McKiernan, Gerard [LIB]]

Colleagues/

The Longest Journey Begins With The First Step!

/Gerry

 

Online Scientific Repository Hits Milestone | With 500,000 Articles, arXiv Established as Vital Library Resource

 

 [ http://arxiv.org/]

 

ITHACA, N.Y. (October 3, 2008) - Reinforcing its place in the scientific community, the arXiv repository at Cornell University Library reached a new milestone in October 2008. Half a million e-print postings - research articles published online - now reside in arXiv, which is free and available to the public.

 

arXiv is the primary daily information source for hundreds of thousands of researchers in many areas of physics and related fields. Its users include the world's most prominent researchers in science, including 53 Physics Nobel Laureates, 31 Fields Medalists and 55 MacArthur Fellows, as well as people in countries with limited access to scientific materials. The famously reclusive Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman posted the proof for the 100-year-old Poincaré Conjecture solely in arXiv.

[snip]

"arXiv began its operations before the World Wide Web, search engines, online commerce and all the rest, but nonetheless anticipated many components of current 'Web 2.0' methodology," said Cornell professor Paul Ginsparg, arXiv's creator. "It continues to play a leading role at the forefront of new models for scientific communication.

[snip]

More than 200,000 articles are downloaded from arXiv each week by about 400,000 users, and its 118,000 registered submitters live in nearly 200 countries, including Suriname, Sudan and Iraq. Fifteen countries host mirrors of the main site, which is located on Cornell's campus in Ithaca, N.Y.

 

"It represents an incredible model for scholarly communication that transcends borders, publishers and time," said Anne R. Kenney, Cornell's Carl A. Kroch University Librarian. "We bring operational stability and a demonstrated track record of stewardship to this invaluable open-access resource."

[snip]

Ginsparg developed arXiv in 1991, when he was working for Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. When Ginsparg came to Cornell as a faculty member in 2001, the repository came with him and is now a collaboration between Cornell University Library and Cornell's Information Science Program. The Library maintains the repository; information science handles research and development.

[snip]

 "We're excited to not only sustain and grow arXiv, but also to make it an integral part of the global scholarly communications infrastructure," said arXiv manager Simeon Warner, who has been working on the project for nearly a decade.

 

Congrats To Paul et al.!

/Gerry

Gerry McKiernan
Associate Professor
Science and Technology Librarian
Iowa State University Library
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu

There is Nothing More Powerful Than  An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Victor Hugo

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