How do you define the value of something if it's free? Observations on Caltech's Institutional Repository

Abstract

Caltech's Institutional Repository - the Caltech Collection of Open Digital Archives (Caltech CODA) - recently surpassed its 40,000th submission and has over five million downloads since July of 2008. CODA is comprised of several different repositories, including CaltechAUTHORS and CaltechTHESIS. CaltechAUTHORS encompasses the scholarly output of Caltech researchers, with items made freely available when licensing permits. Recently, the Caltech Media Relations department has been coordinating with the Library when articles of note generate press releases; the Library works to acquire permissions (when possible) to make the article available upon issuance of the press release. Doctoral graduates are required to deposit their thesis in CaltechTHESIS in order to graduate, with items being made freely available when permitted, or embargoed for a finite amt. of time. Requests for embargoed theses are regularly received by the Library and permissions are sought (and often obtained) wherever possible. This talk will describe the contents of Caltech CODA, examine usage statistics and trends in terms of item type and coordinated publicity, describe case studies of how IRs can facilitate compliance with funder requirements for reporting and data sharing, and offer some observations and insights on how making information freely available may (or may not) translate into "impact".