The Caltech Collection of Online Digital Archives (CODA) has been receiving a lot of publicity in the Open Access Authoring @ Caltech blog site....
When asked to give a brief description of CODA, George Porter, a Technical Reference Librarian in the Sherman Fairchild Library for the last 9 years, first responded that CODA is a number of things. It is primarily a digital collection of all Caltech authored technical reports, books, conference papers, and oral histories from the Caltech archives, as well as a repository for Caltech dissertations and electronic theses (ETD’s). The repository was launched in 2000, and as of 9/5/06 we have 2,884 dissertations on file. It has been mandatory, since 2003, for all graduate students to submit their theses electronically....[PS: Reluctantly cutting a photo of George Porter here.]
George further notes a major benefit of having [open] access to Caltech authored research information is the visibility and easy access by multiple users to this data. Prior to this 24-hour-a-day on-line availability, only one hard copy of a paper was available, and it was kept filed away in the Archives. Library staff is currently involved in scanning all pre-2003 theses into CODA. Papers typed over 50 years ago can be digitally enhanced to be clearer than the originals. Geological maps can be saved in high-quality color, with the ability to zoom in and out....
Papers from as far back as 1914 have been scanned and stored in CaltechAUTHORS....
The Caltech community is truly benefited by having such a rich body of work accessible on-line. CODA not only allows students, faculty, and staff to view research material, but, almost by default, we are also able to read about our shared cultural history.
PS: Congratulations to George, who was the most regular of my co-contributors here at OAN before I converted it to a solo blog in May 2006.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/29/2006 11:54:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
