ArXiv, Pioneering Online Scientific Repository Hits Major Milestone

Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 10/07/2008

arXiv hits 500,000 papers
More innovation to come, including "web 2.0" features
Over 200,000 articles downloaded weekly

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As SPARC and other organizers get ready for a conference on institutional repositories, Cornell University last week announced that arXiv, a pioneering repository of physics information, now hosted at the Cornell University Library (CUL), has reached a major milestone: it now hosts a half-million e-print postings. Considered the top resource for the physics community, arXiv was developed by Paul Ginsparg in 1991, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. When Ginsparg came to Cornell as a faculty member in 2001, the repository came with him.

Growth and value
The repository’s value—Cornell officials say, has continued to increase. Today, more than 200,000 articles are downloaded from arXiv each week by about 400,000 users. It has 118,000 registered “submitters,” coming from nearly 200 countries, including 53 Physics Nobel Laureates, 31 Fields Medalists, and 55 MacArthur Fellows.

ArXiv encompasses publications in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science, and quantitative biology. Researchers upload their own articles, and they are usually made available to the public the next day, free to all, including the general public. A team of 113 volunteer moderators from around the world screen submissions.

Standard-bearer

ArXiv has been a standard-bearer for what institutional repositories can become—the most consulted resource for scientists in the field, it has not only proven to be a sustainable library venture, but the commercial journal market for physics has also thrived alongside the repository. “[ArXiv] represents an incredible model for scholarly communication that transcends borders, publishers, and time,” said Cornell librarian Anne Kenney, adding that the library offers both “operational stability” and “a demonstrated track record of stewardship.”

And the repository is continually evolving—for example, now linking to other repositories and RSS feeds, and even developing an iPhone interface. “ArXiv began its operations before the World Wide Web, search engines, online commerce and all the rest,” Ginsparg noted, “but it nonetheless anticipated many components of current ‘Web 2.0’ methodology.” Both Ginsparg and arXiv manager Simeon Warner, who has worked on the repository for nearly a decade, said they plan it keep arXiv at the forefront of scientific scholarly communication. “We’re excited to not only sustain and grow arXiv,” Warner said, “but to make it an integral part of the global scholarly communications infrastructure.”

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