More than 10 Million Articles Downloaded from CaltechAUTHORS

In late June, CaltechAUTHORS—the Institute's repository for research publications authored by Caltech faculty and affiliated researchers—reached a landmark 10 million downloads since tracking began in July 2008.

CaltechAUTHORS offers a searchable and open repository of the scholarly output of the Institute, granting users access to the most definitive versions of research that Caltech is permitted to distribute. It contains over 50,000 articles, 8,000 books or book chapters, and 3,300 Caltech technical reports.

"Researchers are only able to stand upon the shoulders of giants when those shoulders can be reached. CaltechAUTHORS provides both visibility and access to allow researchers to build upon the groundbreaking work performed at the Institute," says engineering librarian George Porter.

Reaching 10 million downloads is a significant achievement: in comparison, Harvard University's DASH repository has had 11.7 million downloads, while MIT's DSpace repository has logged 7.8 million. 

That CaltechAUTHORS contains over 65,000 research publications is the result of effective collaboration between the faculty and the Caltech Library. The faculty has embraced the repository's role in increasing the accessibility of scientific research: in 2013, the Faculty Board voted to approve an Institute-wide open-access policy. Seventy-three percent of all materials in the repository are now open access.

Complementing CaltechAUTHORS, the library has just launched CaltechDATA, a service for storing and sharing data files and software associated with Caltech research. Tom Morrell, a Caltech Library research data specialist, notes that traditional publications cannot always effectively handle diverse types of data files or software. CaltechDATA ensures that users can archive and share their data and software. 

Porter says these two digital repositories, CaltechAUTHORS and CaltechDATA, are "key to the library's commitment to preserving Caltech research contributions for the long term—and to increasing the accessibility of Caltech research to a broader audience."