CU moves toward digital academic publishing with online 'superarchive'

By Bill Steele

Many predict that digital publishing of academic research and scholarship is the wave of the future and eventually will replace the slow and expensive system of print journals. Cornell will soon take a step further toward such a future with the creation of an online "superarchive."

The idea behind the superarchive concept, currently being explored by several universities, is to make much of the institution's scholarship -- perhaps some day all of it -- freely available on the Web, not only to other scholars but also to the public. Eventually, according to J. Robert Cooke, professor of biological and environmental engineering and dean of the faculty, Cornell will use the digital archive for online publication of its own faculty's research, either as a supplement or an alternative to conventional publishing in printed journals.

Online publications can contain not only conventional research papers, but also primary data upon which the papers are based, along with color images and multimedia material that would never appear in print journals. Cornell's uses also could include posting such things as geological and genomics databases, and even lists of breeding cows in New York state.

In addition to providing a general-purpose digital archive, Cooke expects this new capability to provide the basis for both informal and formal online publishing of scholarly papers. "We want to break the barrier to access," he explained. Users will be able to print any paper from the screen, or may order printed copies for a fee. Users may even create what Cooke calls "custom journals" by requesting collections of printouts of certain articles.

Cooke has been saying for many years that each university should bear the cost of publishing the work of its own faculty, avoiding the expensive system of print journals in which, as many have described it, "scholars give their articles to publishers, who then sell them back to university libraries." Annual subscriptions to print journals, especially those by commercial publishers, have escalated in cost at a rate much in excess of inflation for many years, and no end is in sight, Cooke said. As a result, he said, Cornell and other universities have had to cancel many subscriptions because of budgetary constraints, thus jeopardizing faculty success in teaching and research.

"We've lost control of access to our scholarship and that's unacceptable," Cooke said. He advocates the creation of an "open-access, Internet-first" approach to scholarly publishing. Ultimately, he says, online publication will not only mean substantial savings to university libraries, but also will provide faster and better communication between researchers. "In many disciplines, especially the sciences, student and faculty prefer the convenience of around-the-clock access from one's work desk," he added.

User communities will establish standards on what can be posted to the archive, Cooke said. Those who post will have the option of making their information available to all or restricting access in various ways. Posting will be voluntary, but it's expected that some faculty members may be reluctant. As an incentive to faculty, proponents of the system point to studies showing that work posted online is more likely to be cited by other researchers.

It's also expected that in some cases scholarly journals will order researchers not to post material that has been or will be published in a journal. The Faculty Committee on Intellectual Property, chaired by John Hopcroft, professor of computer science, has been asked to explore how to deal with this, among other issues.

The issues involved in a changeover to electronic publishing of scholarly work will be discussed in a faculty forum, "Open Access Scholarly Publishing: Opportunities and Obstacles," Wednesday, Dec. 11, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in Hollis Cornell Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall.

Initially the archive will run on hardware provided by Cornell Information Technologies, but eventually, with foundation support, Cooke expects it to expand into a dedicated system starting with at least 5 terabytes of storage space.

Kenneth King, former vice provost for computing at Cornell and former president of EDUCOM, is the project manager of the superarchive.

Cornell University Library will administer the system. The archive will be searchable, using key words and "metadata" included with each posting. The archival system uses free, open-source software developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which calls its archive "DSpace." Columbia University, the University of Toronto, the University of Washington, the University of Rochester and Ohio State University also are creating online archives using DSpace software, and about 30 institutions have expressed interest, according to MIT.