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- PubMedCentral (PMC)[1] is a repository for journal literature deposited by participating publishers, as well as for author manuscripts that have been submitted in compliance with the access policies of the NIH and other research funding agencies. Free access is a requirement, but publishers can delay the release of their material for twelve months after publication. There are currently 2.4m full-text articles, growing at about 10% a year. Most PMC articles have a corresponding entry in PubMed, the database of citations and abstracts which provides links to full-text articles at journal websites. UKPMC[2] was established in partnership with PMC in 2007. In addition to access to most of the content in PMC itself, it provides a manuscript submission system which allows publishers and researchers to submit articles for inclusion in the UKPMC collection, along with information about researchers and research grants. Free access is a requirement, but publishers can delay release of their material for up to twelve months. Over 35,000 articles have been deposited in UKPMC since it was established, the great majority by publishers; and 200,000 visits (5,000 searches) are made each day.
4.22. A number of smaller-scale subject repositories have been established in the UK, including the PhilPapers[3] service which provides a directory of online academic philosophy, with metadata and links more than full-text. The OpenFields service[4] is an online library designed to meet practitioner and student demand for knowledge that supports and stimulates the development of land-based industries.
4.23. In sum, it is clear that a fairly comprehensive infrastructure of institutional repositories has been developed in the UK, and that they have the potential to fulfil a number of purposes in providing a shop window for the research activities and outputs of their host institutions, and links with research management systems, as well as an alternative route for access to published research findings. Despite the best efforts of repository managers and librarians, however, rates of deposit and usage of published materials remain fairly low; and a number of issues will need to be addressed if institutional repositories are to fulfil a bigger and more effective role in the research communications landscape. We consider those issues later in this report.
4.24. Some subject-based repositories, on the other hand, have developed a significant role for themselves in a number of subject areas, with high rates of deposit and use[5] enabling them to reach a scale which means that researchers find them difficult to ignore. Overall, however, the provision of subject-based repositories remains patchy, with many subject areas lacking them entirely, or with small-scale repositories which have not reached the critical mass to make them effective routes to access.
