ORBi reached the milestone of 20,000 publications deposited, 70% being in « full text » (every effort should be made to not fall below this percentage, the ideal goal obviously being to reach 100%) . The 20,000 figure was reached a month before mid-November, the earlier forecast date. A remarkable achievement indeed!
In ORBI’s statistics section, an analysis of the most consulted and downloaded publications has shown that a significant number belongs to the field of human sciences. There are of course a number of specialized internet websites (PubMed for example) in various fields of the exact and life sciences that researchers worldwide are used to systematically consulting which are better indexed than our repository because of their content richness and reputation. This has created a certain bias in favour of other fields within ORBi. Nevertheless, ORBi undoubtedly helps increase the visibility of other fields which have less profited by the development of international thematic repositories. I am very encouraged by this.
This is thus a very opportune time to celebrate « Open Access Week » . EOS will be participating in the « Working Together to Strengthen Research in Europe » conference organized by the European Commission, which will address the issues of Open Access and institutional repositories. In the near future, the Union is expected to request that publications resulting from research financed by Europe be put online in Open Access. We will certainly support this demand, so that our researchers will always be a step ahead thanks to ORBi.