UNL Digital Commons becomes 4th-largest university electronic archive

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Digital Commons has grown in size to become the fourth-largest open access repository among U.S. research universities, according the Registry of Open Access Repositories.

With more than 15,040 theses, dissertations and papers, UNL is surpassed only by the University of Michigan, Ohio State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the size of its electronic-access directory of research works, UNL dean of libraries Joan Giesecke said. UNL surpassed the University of California system to take fourth place.

The repository is a service of UNL Libraries. Faculty, researchers and students deposit digital materials like doctoral dissertations and master's theses, documents, presentations, published peer-reviews papers, creative activities and electronic books for long-term preservation and world-wide electronic accessibility.

"UNL Digital Commons showcases our faculty and student research, increasing the visibility of their work and providing an easy way for potential students to see the breadth and depth of the work done at UNL," Giesecke said. "The wonderful increase in the size of our databases allows us to highlight the wide variety of research done at UNL."

UNL's Digital Commons is one of a growing number of institutional repositories at research universities across the United States. Digital Commons@UNL acts both as a resource for scholarly communication and a preservation tool. It is also searchable by Google, making scholarly work available to a broader audience.

When a faculty member submits materials in the Digital Commons, he or she becomes a permanent part of the UNL Libraries' collection. Publication units can designate levels of access to their materials, from unrestricted and accessible to all or restricted to only UNL faculty, students and staff. The Digital Commons provides a stable URL and a means to migrate the data as electronic formats evolve.

Digital Commons director Paul Royster said individual faculty members reap many benefits from having their research products posted in the Digital Commons.

"Besides the increased visibility and accessibility, their work gets cited more frequently, has a permanent home, establishes the precedence of their research, and can attract potential collaborators and financial supporters," Royster said. "Most journal publishers will allow faculty to deposit a copy of their article in their home institution's repository. It is just a matter of asking permission."

Visit http://digitalcommons.unl.edu to view materials

CONTACT: Paul Royster, Director, Digital Commons, UNL Libraries (402) 472-3628