Re: Forthcoming OA Developments in France

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:55:12 +0000

    A fully linked version of this posting is available at:
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/187-guid.html

Here are actual and projected growth rate statistics for France's
national OA Repository, HAL, kindly supplied by HAL's architect and
helmsman, Franck Laloe.

    http://openaccess.eprints.org/uploads/HALgrowth.gif

France's annual research output is about 12,000 articles per month,
so HAL's present spontaneous deposit rate of 1600 articles per month
is about the same as the baseline of 15% for spontaneous (unmandated)
self-archiving worldwide today.

Spontaneous self-archiving in HAL seems to have begun in about 2002, so
it is not clear whether the monthly deposit rate will continue to
accelerate or was simply catching up with the baseline at which all
other unmandated self-archiving rates have been idling for years now. If
HAL's monthly deposit growth rate is indeed exponential, then HAL will
reach 100% self-archiving in 5 years without a mandate; if it is a power
curve ("puissance") it will take 15 years; if (like Arxiv) it is linear,
it will take even longer. (Arxiv's power exponent has been unchangingly
quadratic for 15 years, HAL's so far seems ternary)

    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/185-guid.html

> FRANCK LALOE: [translated from French] "There are also some small
> research institutes in France which are already self-archiving
> 100% of their research output, for example IN2P3, a component
> (high-energy physics) of CNRS. A team of 3 documentalists deposits
> 100% of IN2P3 article output in Hal-IN2P3, because on a small scale
> this is possible. Another example is IFREMER, a small institute for
> research on seas and oceans. They have a small, well-done archive
> containing 100% of their output. As to my own field of research,
> it has been self-archiving at 99% in ArXiv for a long time?"

There seem to be two morals to this story: (1) Even a centralised
national archiving system in a centralised country like France, cannot
succeed without a national deposit mandate; (2) until France adopts a
national deposit mandate, it too, like all other countries, will have to
rely on individual institutional (and research-funder) mandates.

Stevan Harnad

Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Threads:

    Are things otherwise in France? (began May, 1999)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#268

    INIST/CNRS : nouveautés du site Libre Accès (Dec 2004)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#4253

    France's INRIA Registers Commitment to Implement Berlin
    Declaration Self-Archiving Policy Recommendation (Mar 2005)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4475.html

    France's CNRS Registers Commitment to Implement Berlin Declaration
    Self-Archiving Policy Recommendation (May 2005)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#4447

    Helene Bosc et le progres en acces libre en france (Mar 2006)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#5244

    CNRS position on OA : new details (Jun 2006)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#5422

    Forthcoming OA Developments in France (Jun 2006)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#5434

    France's HAL, OAI interoperability, and Central vs Institutional
    Repositories (Oct 2006)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#5679
Received on Mon Dec 25 2006 - 23:25:54 GMT

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