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3 Preprint Servers and Institutional Repositories

In my work as a Scholarly Communications librarian, helping my community with publishing is a very rewarding part of my job! My role focuses on publishing Open Educational Resources (OER), which are materials licensed under a Creative Commons License and are free to reuse and adapt by anyone. This nontraditional method of publishing is an integral part of the open education movement. Likewise, preprint publishing serves as an alternative to traditional science publishing while upholding the values of open science.

Getting your faculty and graduate students started with preprint publishing is easy! Ask your authors to follow these steps:

  • First, choose a preprint server to publish in! Check out this list of preprint servers for a wide range of scientific disciplines from ASAPbio: Preprint Servers – ASAPbio
  • Review the preprint server’s policies and procedures
  • Choose your licensing option
  • Prepare the manuscript
  • Submit your preprint
  • Share on your social media and institutional platforms
  • Consider becoming a peer reviewer¹

Librarians can publish preprints in their own backyards, too. Does your university have an institutional repository? Consider publishing your community’s preprints in your repository in addition to a preprint server. To get started, create a community in your repository just for preprints! You can organize them based on subject, department, or author type (such as student or faculty). Next be sure to add “preprint” to your metadata and keywords sections. Once the preprint is deposited, share it across your institution! See Chapter 1 of this text for ideas on how to incorporate preprints into your teaching. 

¹Source: Ettinger CL, Sadanandappa MK, Görgülü K, Coghlan KL, Hallenbeck KK, Puebla I. A guide to preprinting for early-career researchers. Biol Open. 2022 Jul 15;11(7):bio059310. doi: 10.1242/bio.059310. Epub 2022 Jul 25. PMID: 35876380; PMCID: PMC9346271.