Repositories: extending the reach of research

Repositories such as our own Research@StAndrews:FullText are a great way to increase the visibility of research. It is also a way to extend the reach of research to those unable to afford the pricey subscriptions demanded by many publishers.

A great example of the benefits of depositing manuscripts in Research@StAndrews:FullText is Forgiving you is hard, but forgetting seems easy: can forgiveness facilitate forgetting? by Saima Noreen,  Raynett Bierman, and Malcolm David MacLeod.

The paper can be found in Research@StAndrews:FullText here http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4779.

Many people won't go directly to our repository to find content, but will instead rely on Google. The Google search results clearly show the favourable rankings of Research@StAndrews:FullText; of the 30,000 results the repository is ranked 2nd. So, someone looking to read the article might be inclined to click on the first link and go to publisher source first. However, upon clicking that link, unless they have a subscription they will be met with a pay-wall. This pay-wall is particularly expensive at $35 for a mere 24 hours!

So, repositories like Research@StAndrews:FullText provide the second option: an accepted manuscript with all the same information as the published version, but free of charge (and with no time constraints!)