New England Law Library Consortium and The Berkeley Electronic Press Create Legal Scholarship Repository
The New England Law Library Consortium (NELLCO) and The Berkeley Electronic Press today announced the launch of the NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository, a major new scholarly publishing initiative. The NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository will improve dissemination and visibility of a variety of scholarly materials throughout the academic and legal research communities.
The NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository provides a free and persistent point of access for working papers, reports, lecture series, workshop presentations, and other scholarship created by faculty at NELLCO member institutions. Five NELLCO members – Yale, Cornell, University of Connecticut, Suffolk, and Fordham – have created publication series within the repository for launch. Over 75 publications have been posted to date (all freely available), in series such as Yale's Occasional Papers and Cornell's International Speaker Series. Based on the results of early adopters, the NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository may expand to include other participants from NELLCO's membership roster of sixty-five law libraries.
Every publication series within the NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository has its own unique identity, including a description of the sponsoring research unit, logos, and links back to relevant faculty pages. These series feed into a single, searchable collection. Visitors to the site can easily browse papers by subject, author, and so forth. Because of Open Archives Initiative (OAI) compliance, content is discoverable from a variety of locations and methods, including search engines like Google. Readers can also sign up to receive custom email notifications of newly posted papers. Citations are delivered directly to their desktop, with links to full text.
"The NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository creates a highly visible, open access path to important research," said Tracy Thompson, Executive Director of the New England Law Library Consortium. "Allowing centers and research units within our member institutions to create dynamic publication sites will provide them with a valuable recruitment and profile-raising tool. Of perhaps greater importance, the average Web user with an interest in a legal issue will be able to easily access important scholarship."
The NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository runs on technology developed by The Berkeley Electronic Press. The Berkeley Electronic Press software facilitates efficient electronic distribution of text documents, as well as multimedia files and other non-static resources. In addition to powering this digital archive, The Berkeley Electronic Press also provides the technical infrastructure for the University of California's eScholarship Repository.
About The New England Law Library Consortium
The New England Law Library Consortium, Inc. (NELLCO) is a non-profit corporation composed of academic (ABA accredited), private non-profit, and government libraries. Founded in 1983, NELLCO is a cooperative network designed to enhance research and educational opportunities among member law libraries through a variety of collaborative initiatives and resource sharing programs. The NELLCO Legal Scholarship Repository embodies the vision that NELLCO founding members established 20 years ago: To be the leader of resource sharing and networking in the legal community through cutting-edge research and technology.
About The Berkeley Electronic Press
Founded by academics in 1999, The Berkeley Electronic Press ("bepress") is both a publisher of peer-reviewed electronic journals and a software developer, having created the institutional repository platform that powers Digital Commons as well as the University of California's eScholarship Repository. The Company produces tools to improve scholarly communication via innovative and effective means of content production and dissemination. Bepress has a portfolio of products and services that reduces the costs of and barriers to access.
For additional information on bepress, please see: www.bepress.com.