Viability of establishing institutional and biomedical/health sciences repositories in Valencia

Abstract

Self-archiving was studied in 3,495 papers in 109 core journals that published 50% of Valencia´s scientific production in biomedical and health sciences included in the 2000-2004 ISI databases. The effectiveness of self-archiving is analyzed with respect to the feasibility of launching open access institutional and subject-specific repositories. Data were obtained from the Sherpa/Romeo database. Self-archiving is favourable for the implementation of institutional repositories because 56.8% of papers could be immediately deposited, a percentage that increases to 72% after a period of embargo and to 87% when papers published in full text journals are included. The feasibility of establishing biomedical and health science repositories for the Valencian Community is questionable, due to the fact that most publishers will not grant permission for inclusion in a repository unless mandated by the research funding agency, a practice lacking in our country at present.