OpenDOAR (The Directory of Open Access Repositories)

URL: http://www.opendoar.org/

What?

The OpenDOAR service provides a quality-assured listing of Open Access Repositories (OAR) around the world. OpenDOAR staff harvest and assign metadata to allow categorisation and analysis to assist the wider use and exploitation of repositories. Each of the repositories has been visited by OpenDOAR staff to ensure a high degree of quality and consistency in the information provided: OpenDOAR is maintained by SHERPA...

Aims?

• Survey the growing field of academic open access research repositories and categorise them in terms of locale, content and other measures.
• Produce a descriptive list of open access repositories of relevance to academic research.
• Provide a comprehensive & authoritative list for end users wishing to find particular types of, or specific repositories.
• Deliver a comprehensive, structured and maintained list with clear update and self-regulation protocols to enable development of the list.
• Play a prominent international role in the organisation of and access to open access repository services.
• Support Open Access outreach and advocacy endeavours within institutions and globally.

Useful?

At present there is no single comprehensive and authoritative list which records academic open access repositories. In a networked environment, Information Discovery and Retrieval are the keys to the successful delivery of services. By listing archives and their descriptions, OpenDOAR will support third party service providers - for example, search services - in developing new services for end-users...

Findability?

Although OpenDOAR was not originally intended to provide a search service for individual articles held in repositories, the advent of Google's Custom Search Engine has made this possible. You can therefore now both search for the full-text of material held in open access repositories listed in the Directory using 'Search Repository Contents', or use OpenDOAR to find repositories or groups of repositories that fit particular needs using our 'Find' facility.

Masterminds?

OpenDOAR is being developed and maintained by the University of Nottingham as part of a portfolio of work in Open Access and repositories under the SHERPA umbrella. OpenDOAR was started and initially developed by the University of Nottingham, UK, and the Lund University , Sweden...

Currently, there are 930 repositories in the directory (Surely to grow!). Here is one of many juicy informative and visual statistics about what you can find in OpenDOAR :)