Cornell University Library Engages More Institutions in Supporting arXiv
Collaborative Business Model Changes Funding Structure

ITHACA, N.Y. (Jan. 21, 2010) – In a move to expand support for sustaining arXiv, Cornell University Library is broadening the funding base for the online scientific repository. Nearly 600,000 e-prints – research articles published online in physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science and related disciplines – now reside in arXiv, which is an open information source for hundreds of thousands of scientific researchers.

arXiv will remain free for readers and submitters, but the Library has established a voluntary, collaborative business model to engage institutions that benefit most from arXiv.

“Keeping an open-access resource like arXiv sustainable means not only covering its costs, but also continuing to enhance its value, and that kind of financial commitment is beyond a single institution’s resources,” said Oya Rieger, Associate University Librarian for Information Technologies. “If a case can be made for any repository being community-supported, arXiv has to be at the top of the list.”

Go to for more info:  http://news.library.cornell.edu/news/arxiv

Come see the library’s new exhibit showcasing the geology of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Pennsylvania display contains geological samples and fossils donated by Dr. Leonard Finegold of the Physics department and Phillip Getty, a local Geological Society member. It is housed in a display case near the stairs on the first floor of W.W. Hagerty Library.

The New Jersey State Museum has loaned us some very interesting specimens to accompany our New Jersey geologic display, which can be found at the top of the stairs on Hagerty’s 2^nd floor. We’ve also highlighted some books from the library collection that can teach you more about the specimens displayed or help you plan your next fossil-hunting trip.

Dig it!

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) today announced the launch of Release 2 of the AIP UniPHY (aipuniphy.org) professional networking site for physical scientists. Developed in partnership with Collexis Holdings, Inc., a leading developer of semantic technology and knowledge discovery software, this latest release sports an enhanced design and new, more powerful features to further assist physical science researchers worldwide to connect and collaborate.

From Knowledgespeak

Cornell University’s

arXiv project, which includes an e-print archive of scientific papers, is looking to covert the existing simple database to a more interactive one. It is being projected as a place where authors, articles, databases and readers talk to each other to help users identify a work’s main concepts, see research reports in context and easily find related work. The project is funded by a three-year $883,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, with federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).The arXiv currently contains close to 600,000 papers in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and statistics, with some 5,000 new papers submitted each month.

Researchers submit their work as ‘preprints’ before formal publication.

New tools will link papers by concepts, not just by the citations they contain. This is expected to help users without advanced expertise including some outside the scientific community – understand the significance of new research. The system will also identify related databases and commentaries.