Journals come and go. Academic societies merge or fade in relevance. Projects end abruptly. Scholarly work should create a permanent record, but the reality of human and institutional lives can interfere. There’s no single solution to the tides of time, but self-archiving is one popular method for preservation.
Self-archiving is a type of open access where a scholar makes their work available online beyond the journal’s website and academic databases. These alternate spaces can include personal websites, institutional repositories, or subject archives. Also called Green Open Access, self-archiving is not just an alternative to paying publication fees to OA journals; scholars choose to self-archive for many reasons, including wishing to maintain a record of their work or to preserve work against the situations outside their control.
Our plates are often full in academia, and self-archiving is an extra step amidst the fast-paced world of publishing. With many publishers requiring an embargo period on Green OA, that extra step could include making a reminder and following through months after publication. But let’s consider a few reasons why one might want to make the effort to self-archive.
Reason 1: You’re Allowed
Academics have fought for and won the right to self-archive journal articles from virtually every major academic publisher, including the big commercial conglomerates. The extension of such policies to book chapters may not be far behind. Green OA is in many ways the compromise in allowing publishers to keep their subscription model while recognizing that the internet continues to dramatically reshape scholarship toward increased openness.
Given the nature of most academic publishing contracts, it’s remarkable that scholars have won this much recognition of their ownership over their scholarly work, and scholars should exercise this right to self-archive to emphasize their primary role in scholarly publishing.
Reason 2: Uncertainty
As publications come and go, their web presence can fall into disuse and disrepair. Societies form and either fulfill their responsibilities or pass them on to younger organizations as trends change. All of this change accrues until no one (or no fund) is left to renew the organization’s registration or hosting.
Little that is born-digital is permanent without some human’s continuous effort. If digital librarianship has a credo, it’s LOCKSS: lots of copies keeps stuff safe. Self-archiving is the cloud equivalent of backing up a hard drive. So long as the original publication and DOI work, the self-archived version is merely an alternative, but should the publication close, you (or future readers) may be thankful to have the backup.
Furthermore, archives run by librarians often place permanency high on their list of priorities. For example, IUScholarWorks (IU’s own institutional repository) participates in CLOCKSS to archive material offsite.
Reason 3: Not Everything is a Peer-reviewed Article
Some academic work will never fit the standard journal article format or lifecycle. Scholars create educational materials. We contribute to newsletters and other inter-department or inter-agency communications. We host lecture series and round tables on trends in our fields. We write memorials for our peers and other informal histories.
Most of this work is transient, invisible, and inaccessible, but it doesn’t have to be. The self-archiving of these papers, slides, and videos would preserve a public record that may be useful to others. The records linked in the previous paragraph demonstrate the kinds of materials your peers are already choosing to self-archive.
Reason 4: It’s Easier Than Ever
IUScholarWorks is maintained by IU Libraries’ department of Scholarly Communication for the purpose of disseminating and preserving the intellectual and creative output of Indiana University scholars. IUSW is free to use, open to all IU-affiliated scholars, and carries the library’s assurance of reliability and permanence through server updates and migrations. Once the paper is uploaded, you can rest easy that it will remain accessible.
In addition to the cloud storage space and perpetual access promise, there are several other benefits to using IUSW. Our guide include links to tools like Open Policy Finder exist to minimize the time you spend determining your self-archiving rights for previously published work. Many publishers insist upon embargoing the Green OA copy for six to twelve months, and IUScholarWorks can help by automatically releasing the article’s downloadable files on a specific date. The archival copy could be uploaded today and released without you having to put a single thing into your already busy calendar.
Reason 5: Access
If you’ve spent any time as an independent researcher, you know how many paywalls exist between you and leading research. Even within the university, most of us have wanted access to an article or chapter that IU Libraries couldn’t immediately provide. Choosing to go Green OA with your papers is a benefit to everyone, but also for you as the choice to self-archive could lead to more citations and collaborators.
It’s often said in Scholarly Communications that the cost of Green OA is time: for the author and for the reader. Institutional repositories not only help the writer manage embargoes as noted above, but by providing consistent metadata, a repository like IUScholarWorks makes work available to academic search engines like Google Scholar.
IUScholarWorks is free to use for IU affiliates. We encourage you to begin the registration process now, and if you’re already registered, consult our guide for a refresher on how to use the site.
Open Access Week (October 20 – 24) is an annual opportunity to learn and raise awareness about Open Access: free, immediate, online access to scholarly research and the right to use and re-use that research as needed. Click the link to see the list of events at IU.
About the author: Elizabeth-Marie Helms is a graduate student in Library Science and the History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine. A former middle school history teacher, she now studies the public understanding of science and works as an assistant in Scholarly Communications for IU Libraries.
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