Duke Law’s Scholarship Repository passes 1.5 million downloads
On Sept 8, The Duke Law Scholarship Repository recorded its 1.5 millionth download, making it the first law school repository to reach that milestone. According to Berkeley Electronic Press (BePress), which hosts the repository, this also places Duke Law among the top 10 of the over 250 Digital Commons institutional repositories, many of which are operated by larger research institutions.
Launched in 2005 to maximize open access to the scholarly works of Duke Law faculty and affiliates (and hosted by Digital Commons since 2009), the repository is a joint project of the J. Michael Goodson Law Library and the Law School’s Academic Technologies and Communications departments. The repository features advanced search functions and cross-indexes scholarship through other Digital Commons sites. BePress also provides data on use of the materials in the repository. With 9,501 papers currently online, works by Duke faculty members and articles from Duke’s nine student-run law journals comprise the bulk of the collections; the repository also contains student scholarship, working papers, and webcast archives of conferences, workshops, and lectures. Scholarship produced by Duke’s research centers will soon be added.
“We are pleased with this further evidence that our efforts to expose Duke Law scholarship to interdisciplinary and international audiences are succeeding,” says Richard A. Danner, Rufty Research Professor of Law and Senior Associate Dean for Information Services. “In particular, our digital initiatives librarian, Hollie White, should be applauded for her ongoing work to develop and promote the repository.”
To date, the most downloaded item in the repository (7,375 total downloads) is “Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments” (2009) by Ralf Michaels, the Arthur Larson Professor of Law.
In 1998 Duke Law became the first law school in the country to make all of its published law journal articles, including back issues, freely accessible online; the journals were added to the repository in 2011 to increase their accessibility to readers world-wide. Since the journals were added to the repository, the most downloaded article is John Wilson and Marc Musick, “The Effects of Volunteering on the Volunteer,” 62 Law and Contemporary Problems 141-168 (Fall 1999) (3,947 total downloads)
In August 2012, more than 7,000 visitors from 118 countries accessed the collections. The most downloaded item overall in August was by Adjoa Linzy ’09, “The Attorney–Client Privilege and Discovery of Electronically-Stored Information,” 10 Duke Law & Technology Review 1-18 (2011) (2379 total downloads).