Julie Kelly and Linda Eells
Researchers in the least developed countries face serious challenges disseminating their work. Competition is stiff in premier journals, the cost of producing print journals is prohibitive, and e-journals have resource requirements that can be challenging to maintain locally. Similar cost and resource challenges limit the production and/or distribution of grey literature. Finally, no matter how valuable the research is, search engines may not give high rankings to papers from small, low-traffic sites.
Subject repositories such as AgEcon Search (http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/) or the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (http://mpra.repec.org/) and librarians with subject specialties can positively impact this situation.
AgEcon Search, housed at the University of Minnesota, is a free repository that provides researchers a mechanism for distributing their research and increasing its discoverability worldwide. A distributed network in which each organization shares in the effort by uploading their own papers (or paying a minimal fee to have it done), the cost to participate is low, removing a major barrier for researchers.
Not only do the producers of the research benefit from greater exposure, but other researchers and students worldwide are able to discover the work and utilize it in their own research and teaching. An example is the collection of research theses from the Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics in Sub-saharan Africa. The 41 papers in this collection have been downloaded over 14,000 times in the last 12 months.
Librarians have an essential role in these projects, building and maintaining the repositories, and promoting a broad vision for their use. Through our understanding of the disciplines and each one’s unique publication process, we identify and pursue likely materials. For AgEcon Search a very productive avenue has been participating in conferences of national and international professional agricultural and applied economics associations.
Subject repositories such as AgEcon Search (http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/) or the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (http://mpra.repec.org/) and librarians with subject specialties can positively impact this situation.
AgEcon Search, housed at the University of Minnesota, is a free repository that provides researchers a mechanism for distributing their research and increasing its discoverability worldwide. A distributed network in which each organization shares in the effort by uploading their own papers (or paying a minimal fee to have it done), the cost to participate is low, removing a major barrier for researchers.
Not only do the producers of the research benefit from greater exposure, but other researchers and students worldwide are able to discover the work and utilize it in their own research and teaching. An example is the collection of research theses from the Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics in Sub-saharan Africa. The 41 papers in this collection have been downloaded over 14,000 times in the last 12 months.
Librarians have an essential role in these projects, building and maintaining the repositories, and promoting a broad vision for their use. Through our understanding of the disciplines and each one’s unique publication process, we identify and pursue likely materials. For AgEcon Search a very productive avenue has been participating in conferences of national and international professional agricultural and applied economics associations.