[Asis-l] arXiv Repository Hits Milestone

[gerrymck]

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.

[ http://communications.library.cornell.edu/com/news/PressReleases/arXiv-milestone.cfm
]

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

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