“Several colleges are now looking to share more of that work by building”institutional repositories” online and inviting their professors to upload copies of their research papers, data sets, and other work. The idea is to gather as much of the intellectual output of an institution as possible in an easy-to-search online collection. One college has called its proposed repository a “super digital archive.”
Proponents say such superarchives could increase communication among scholars and spark greater levels of innovation, especially in the sciences. Some imagine a day when every research university gives its research away through the Web, allowing scholars and nonacademics to mine it for ideas and information. … One of those disincentives, many scholars believe, is the scholarly-journal system, which, critics argue, has a monopoly on scholarly output that leads to ever-soaring subscription prices. Institutional repositories could create an alternative to journals, fans of the archives say.”
The Chronicle: 7/5/2002: ‘Superarchives’ Could Hold All Scholarly Output
