» Library Partners with BioMed Central to Archive Faculty Research UNC Library News and Events

"Nearly 800 journal articles by UNC researchers now enjoy greater visibility thanks to a collaboration between UNC’s library and open access biology and medicine publisher BioMed Central. Every time BioMed Central publishes an article by a UNC affiliate, the article loads automatically to the Library’s Carolina Digital Repository (CDR). The CDR compiles, safeguards, and provides access to the research of UNC faculty and students. Republishing in the CDR provides an extra layer of security, according to project manager Jill Sexton. It also allows the CDR to capture and share a more extensive picture of research activities at UNC, and to capitalize on the Library’s investments in open access publishing. In addition to full text of the articles, BioMed Central shares documents related to the articles, such as surveys, pamphlets, and data sets. The CDR preserves these items along with the articles in a growing collection that already contains more than 2,000 items. The automatic transfer takes place behind the scenes using a technology called Simple Web-Service Offering Repository Deposit (SWORD). BioMed Central publishes 242 peer-reviewed open access journals, meaning that they are freely available world-wide to researchers and the public. UNC authors enjoy discounted publication fees with BioMed Central, thanks to the Library’s institutional membership in the organization. The UNC Library is eager to work with additional publishers interested in piloting the SWORD protocol, says Sexton. To learn more about how the CDR can help manage research outputs or about the transfer of articles from BioMed Central, contact Sexton at jill@email.unc.edu."