The Benefits of a “Central Service” for Biology Preprints | ASAPbio

"Preprints in physics have coalesced into one location – arXiv.org. The critical mass and 'one stop shopping' offered by a single distribution site has been critical for arXiv’s success. The relatively few preprints in biology are distributed on several servers (bioRxiv, Peer J, F1000, qbio section of arXiv), with bioRxiv receiving the most submissions. In addition, more parties are considering developing preprint services including prominent journal publishers such as PLOS. Thus, preprint entities in biology are more likely to expand rather than collapse into one source. The expansion of entry points could dramatically increase preprint numbers and offer unique features for authors. However, fragmentation of preprint sources makes the knowledge harder to find and potentially creates more ambiguity of preprint quality, reuse and preservation. Collecting preprints from multiple intake sources into a unified database (the Central Service) would provide a single repository for searching and mining preprints."