PUBLISHED:October 19, 2009

Duke Law unveils new scholarship repository

Oct. 19, 2009 — Duke Law has launched a new scholarship repository that provides easy, free access to scholarly articles written by past and present Duke Law faculty and will soon include full archives for Duke Law journals, student scholarship, multimedia content, and more.

The site extends Duke Law’s leadership in and commitment to making legal scholarship freely accessible on the Internet and launches during Open Access Week, which seeks to build awareness of efforts to provide greater access to information and ideas through the Internet. Learn more about Duke Law’s leadership in the open access movement here.

Created in partnership with Digital Commons, a scholarship repository system created by the Berkeley Electronic Press, the Duke Law Scholarship Repository will feature improved search functions and gain from cross-indexing through BePress and other Digital Commons repositories.

The site builds upon a scholarship archive launched in 2005 by the Duke Law Library — an archive that over time grew to be too large to easily maintain on Law School servers.

“This repository also is going to allow us to better provide a platform for publications produced by centers and programs in the Law School, for making student scholarship available, and ultimately to provide access to the journals as well,” says Richard Danner, the senior associate dean for information services and Archibald C. and Frances Fulk Rufty Research Professor of Law. “We’re hoping to post video as well, so there will be one place for all our scholarship and related materials.”

Thanks to Danner’s leadership, Duke became one of the first law schools in the country to provide all journal articles online, for free, in 1998. In 2005, Duke began providing all faculty scholarship online for free.

“By posting scholarship in this repository, we’re making faculty work easily findable through general internet searching tools and more accessible to a broad range of scholars in disciplines outside law, to the general public, and to an international audience,” says Melanie Dunshee, assistant dean for information services and senior lecturing fellow. “This broader exposure and access can enhance interdisciplinary connections and collaboration with scholars that would not otherwise be possible, and it helps us provide reliable and scholarly information about law to the general public. We’re very excited about this partnership with BePress and the new doors it opens for our faculty scholarship.”