The role of eprint archives in the access to, and dissemination of, scientific grey literature. LIZA: a case study by the National Library of Portugal

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DOI: 10.1177/016555150202800305 2002; 28; 231 Journal of Information Science

Ana Maria Ramalho Correia and Miguel de Castro Neto case study by the National Libraryof Portugal

The role of eprint archives in the access to, and dissemination of, scientific grey literature: LIZA - a

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Ana Maria Ramalho Correia and Miguel deCastro Neto

Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão de InformaçãoUniversidade Nova de Lisboa and Instituto Superior deAgronomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa,Portugal

Received 31 August 2001Revised 14 December 2001

Abstract.

Grey literature is now universally recognized as an impor-tant information resource. For industrial and business orga-nizations, it contains much knowledge and know-how thatare vital business assets. Grey literature in an R&D environ-ment can represent the cutting edge of this knowledge, so itsefficient management is essential. The increasing possibili-ties brought about by electronic scholarly publishing, in thecontext of scholarly information communication, togetherwith the developments of the World Wide Web, are the dri-ving forces behind the implementation of projects for archiv-ing, preservation and provision of access to electronicscientific grey literature collections. This paper discusses thesignificance of grey literature in an environment where thefunction of the scientific journal, as the privileged media forefficient dissemination of R&D results, has been under somecriticism by researchers and scholars. A literature survey ondigital grey literature access and preservation projects issummarized. The last part of the paper briefly outlines the

main results of a survey on the attitudes and expectancies of researchers and academics in the Mathematics andAgricultural Sciences in Portugal, regarding the creation of ascientific grey literature archive by the National Library ofPortugal – the LIZA initiative – allowing self-posting of arti-cles in electronic media by the Portuguese academic and R&Dcommunities.

1. Introduction

With the advent of the Internet, researchers and acade-mics have recognized the information and communica-tion technologies as efficient means to share results, toget around the barriers raised by the full transfer ofintellectual property rights from author to publisherand to improve on the hitherto slow turnaround oftraditional publishing. This has resulted in a growingnumber of electronic preprint (eprint) archives. Whileseveral of these began as ad hoc vehicles for dissemi-nation of preliminary results, a number of them haveevolved into a more formal means for the efficientsharing of research results among peers in the field.This paper provides a background to the role of eprintsas an efficient information communication media fordisciplines where the rapid dissemination of R&Dresults is essential. Worldwide, several projects arebeing implemented, aiming to promote friendly andeasy access to eprint archives as well as encouraginginteractions between the various disciplines. The mostprominent approaches will be discussed.

The National Library of Portugal, as a deposit institu-tion, has identified the preservation of digital publica-tion as one area where new competences are required.In traditional publishing, the type of publication is the

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Journal of Information Science, 28 (3) 2002, pp. 231–241 231

The effect of postings information on searching behaviour

The role of eprint archives in theaccess to, and dissemination of,scientific grey literature: LIZA – acase study by the National Libraryof Portugal

Correspondence to: A.M. Ramalho Correia, Instituto Superior deEstatística e Gestão de Informação, Universidade Nova deLisboa, Campus de Campolide 1070-312 Lisboa, Portugal. E-mail: [email protected]



main parameter, whereas in the digital paradigm, newdimensions need to be identified and addressed fromthe outset, especially those imposing limitations on thedeposit policy. These limitations can be technical, e.g.ability to store or preserve, or formal if concerned withcopyright issues and economic models. In this context,scientific grey literature was selected to initiate thestudy. It was decided that an eprint archive, containingscientific grey literature created by the Portuguese aca-demic and R&D communities should be created in theNational Library. This is now known as the LIZA ini-tiative [1].

The survey described in the last part of this paperaims to characterize the attitudes and expectancies ofresearchers and academics in the areas of Mathematicsand Agriculture Sciences in Portugal, concerning theproposed national eprints archive.

2. ePrints in the context of scientificcommunication

The origins of formal scholarly publishing date back tothe seventeenth century, to the correspondence amongscholars (Invisible Colleges) in England [2, 3]. Groupsof scholars used to meet regularly to present papers anddiscuss research results, under the auspices of theRoyal Society. They were also corresponding by privateletters and publishing short accounts of the work inprogress to update those members who were unable toattend the meetings. As the volume of correspondencegrew, various scholarly journals emerged as a more effi-cient means to exchange information in a broadersense. Journal des Sçavans and the PhilosophicalTransactions of the Royal Society of London wereamongst the first titles to be published [4]. The schol-arly journal may have started in the seventeenthcentury as a means of communication, but it soonassumed the additional functions of registering ‘owner-ship’ of a scientific discovery and of ‘packing’ currentcommunication into an indexed, readily usable archive[4]. In the nineteenth century, yet another function wasadded: publication of articles in journals came to be theprime indicator of professional standing for researchprofessionals and the organizations that employedthem. Thus, while primarily allowing academics toinform peers of their findings and to be informed bythem, the journal also encapsulated other roles:� author evaluation – providing a means for judging

the competence and effectiveness of authors;� validation of knowledge – through the process of

peer review;

� historical record – maintaining the record ofprogress of science through the years;

� archive – providing a repository for the body ofknowledge about a particular field [5].

The established scholarly journal system is nowexperiencing significant challenges to its continuingpre-eminence [6]:� the possibilities for electronic interchange brought

about by the Internet and the increasing use ofnetworked desktop computers, which facilitatesimmediate sharing of R&D results;

� the boundaries between formal and informal litera-ture have been blurred, due to electronic publishingopportunities; these are manifested in electronicjournals and other web-based publications,including electronic preprint (eprint) servers, andhave resulted in a continuum of interactive, inter-disciplinary and collaborative work [7, 8];

� the rapid advances in most scholarly fields meansthat the turnaround time of the traditionalpublishing model is an impediment to the speedydissemination of R&D results among peers [9];

� the traditional model, requiring full transfer ofintellectual property rights from author topublisher, works against the promotion and widedissemination of results and obtaining peer recog-nition and visibility among colleagues [10];

� the current peer review, as an essential feature ofthe scholarly review process, is too rigid as it standsat present and often works against the expression ofnew ideas, by favouring publication of papers orig-inating from authors in the more prestigious orga-nizations and by causing unacceptable delays inpublication [11, 12];

� the disparity between increases in journal subscrip-tion rates, often exceeding rates of inflation andaffordable library budgets [9, 13].

Such an environment has encouraged the creation ofthe growing number of electronic preprint (eprint)archives [14].

The first eprint server was the Los Alamos PhysicsArchive, presently known as arXiv.org, which wascreated in 1991 by Ginsparg [15–17] at Los AlamosNational Laboratory. It evolved to become the largestnon-peer-review research reports deposit availableworldwide. It is a fully automated electronic archive forresearch papers in physics and related disciplines:mathematics, non-linear sciences, computationallinguistics and neuroscience. During the last decade,the arXiv.org archive has been mirrored in more than adozen countries. The success of this new method ofscientific communication and its acceptance among

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Eprint archives and scientific grey literature

232 Journal of Information Science, 28 (3) 2002, pp. 231–241



researchers and academics can be appreciated from thefollowing data:� In the beginning of 1999, arXiv.org contained

100,000 articles and the number of articles down-loaded, yearly, exceeded 7 million, indicating thateach article is downloaded at least 70 times onaverage (this value refers only to the Los Alamosserver and excludes the mirrors) [18].

� Two years later (2001), the number of articles madeavailable by arXiv.org was some 150,000 andgrowing at a rate of about 30,000 papers per year[19].

Although some authors are questioning the accep-tance of eprint archives in other areas which may notbe so motivated to embrace technological develop-ments as in physics, mathematics and astronomy, thefact is that a few others have recently appeared, asdiscussed in the next paragraph. Further debate on thistopic can be found in Nature [20].

3. Creation of digital collections of greyliterature. Development of mechanisms toprovide easy access to eprint servers

The increasing possibilities brought about by electronicscholarly publishing, together with its importance inthe context of scholarly information communication,are the driving forces behind the development projectsfor archiving, preservation and provision of access toscientific grey literature collections. This section sum-marizes the main findings of a literature survey on dig-ital grey literature projects, conducted as a backgroundto a new project to archive the national scientific greyliterature, promoted by the National Library of Portugal.

The survey, carried out in December 2000 and Janu-ary 2001 by searches on the Internet and on specializedbibliographic databases, indicates that NationalLibraries see grey literature as one of the literature typesaddressed within digital preservation projects –National Libraries of Australia [21], Finland [22] andSweden [23].

In parallel, several other projects whose main objec-tive is the promotion of access to and digital preserva-tion of grey literature can be categorized according tothe material that they cover:� research reports, e.g. GreyLit Network, USA [24];

MAGiC, UK [25]; NACA, USA [26]; NCSTRL [27];� theses and dissertations, e.g. NDLTD [28];� eprints servers, e.g. arXiv.org [29], Clinmed.

NetPrints [30, 31]; CogPrints [32], RePEc [33, 34];

� academic publications of faculties of participatingorganizations, e.g. ARNO, The Netherlands [35];eScholarship, University of California, USA [36];

� portals to access scientific grey literature domainspecific, including individual and institutional webpages, e.g. MareNet [37], MathNet [38], PhysNet[39, 40].

These last groups have in common that they give ahigh priority to subject-oriented interoperability ofdistributed archives as promoted by the Open ArchiveInitiative encapsulated in the Santa Fe Convention (forOpen Archives) [41, 42]. The reason for this survey ofgrey literature projects was to examine the differentapproaches and strategies. Generally, it can be said that:� national libraries are not approaching grey litera-

ture specifically; grey literature is addressed only asone of the components of the national heritagedeposit mission of some national libraries;

� other projects for the creation of grey literatureservers have been promoted by learned societies(e.g. PhysNet, MathNet, MareNet); academic depart-ments (e.g. CogPrint, University of Southampton;ARNO, University of Amsterdam, University ofTwente and University of Tilburg; eScholarship,University of California), research laboratories (e.g.arXiv.org, at Los Alamos National Laboratories), orare within the framework of a document supplyfunction (e.g. MAGiC).

4. The grey literature project of the NationalLibrary of Portugal

4.1. Introduction to the project

The National Library of Portugal (Biblioteca Nacional,BN), as a deposit institution, has as its mission thepreservation of the national heritage. Within this scope,BN is implementing the LIZA project, which aims toenhance awareness, access and use of Portuguese scien-tific and technical grey literature and also its preserva-tion for the benefit of the scientific community, theeducational sector and the public at large. It will alsocontribute to the increased visibility at national andinternational level of this heritage, by ensuring cooper-ation of the LIZA initiative with similar initiativestaking place internationally.

To achieve this, an infrastructure is being developedwhich will enable registration, cataloguing, indexingand archiving to:� enable electronic access to scientific grey literature

produced in Portugal;

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A.M. RAMALHO CORREIA AND M. DE CASTRO NETO

Journal of Information Science, 28 (3) 2002, pp. 231–241 233 © 2002 Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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� promote the interoperability of the LIZA archivewith others available at the international level.

The main aims of this project are:� to enhance formal and informal communication

between the members of the Portuguese scientificcommunities;

� to promote visibility and web accessibility for greyliterature produced by scientific research groups inthe country;

� to increase the availability of scientific informationproduced as a result of the national research effortfor industry, business, teaching, learning and cul-tural sectors and for the public at large;

� to promote interdisciplinary cooperation, as a keyfactor in the growth of public knowledge [43];

� to avoid duplication of effort in Portuguese scien-tific research work;

� to develop synergies between researchers andthereby increase the potential of public investmentin R&D;

� to increase the awareness of the non-scientificcommunity regarding the contribution of R&D tothe well-being of contemporary society;

� to promote international cooperation, integrationand accessibility with other discipline orientedcollections, through compliance with open andinternational standards for interoperability, e.g. theOpen Archive Initiative [41, 42], including thedevelopment of metadata.

To achieve these aims the following specific objec-tives were pursued:� identify and specify the scientific grey literature

types produced and the publishing workflowwithin the different scientific disciplines inPortugal;

� map document creators across different disciplinesin the scientific literature chain;

� characterize the document formats which will needto be accommodated;

� carry out research into the various ways that greyliterature is being produced;

� assess researchers’ expectations regarding theadded value provided by interoperable documentarchives;

� design an infrastructure which will enable volun-tary deposit, registration, cataloguing, indexing andpreservation of grey literature produced inPortugal;

� develop discipline-specific strategies to attractauthors to the project;

� aid the establishment of Internet-based scientificgrey literature web servers in scientific organiza-

tions, respecting international standards for acces-sibility and interoperability.

To this end, a pilot research project was undertakenby CEGI (Centro de Estatística e Gestão de Informação)of ISEGI (Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão deInformação), UNL (Universidade Nova de Lisboa).

Scope of the study. The sectors of Mathematics andAgriculture Sciences were selected to develop the pilotstudy, because the authors could see that they haddifferent behaviours in information communicationbecause of the combined effects of several factors:

(i) Mathematics� this is a sector where the exchange of prelimi-

nary versions of scientific documents betweenresearchers is a long-established practice;

� it is one of the sectors where the first globaleprint archives were established, the arXiv.org,created by Ginsparg in 1991 at Los AlamosNational Laboratory, and where other interna-tional cooperative ventures which provideaccess to freely available information on theWeb are flourishing, e.g. EMIS, EuropeanMathematical Information Service [44].

(ii) Agriculture Sciences� they have a multidisciplinary scope and, unlike

Mathematics, the exchange of scientific prelim-inary versions of documents is not relevant;

� there is no comparable eprint server in theAgriculture Sciences area which has the broad-acceptance of arXiv.org;

� in Portugal, there is a State Research Laboratorydevoted to Agricultural Sciences – INIA(Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária). Asimilar institution does not exist for theMathematical Sciences. This has some bearingon the differing information-seeking behavioursof the scientists in these areas.

In this paper the results of the first stage of the projectare presented.

4.2. Methodology

This study aims to combine:� information available in the literature – analysis of

the state of the art for initiatives worldwide,regarding the management of scientific grey litera-ture in digital format; with

� information-seeking behaviours of producers/usersof scientific literature (researchers, academics/scholars, managers of specialized libraries andinformation centres and learned societies).

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The methodological procedures adopted to collectthe information referred to in the latter point included:� face-to-face interviews with key informants, based

on a semi-structured research instrument;� questionnaire survey sent to producers and users of

scientific grey literature – researchers and acade-mics in the selected national scientific communi-ties.

Face-to-face interviews. Eight interviews with 11 keyinformants have been conducted. The intervieweeswere chosen from researchers and academics (asproducers and users of scientific literature), officers oflearned societies and information managers in highereducation institutions, research organizations andgovernment departments. These interviews began witha presentation of the LIZA project and continued withquestions concerning the patterns of production andcommunication of scientific information in the abovesectors, both in print and in digital format, to identifythe national collections and to evaluate the perceptionsand the use (or non-use) of eprints archives. Theseinterviews, by allowing the characterization of theproduction and communication of scientific literature,also contributed to a more precise definition of thetarget population to be interviewed.

Questionnaire survey. The preparation of the ques-tionnaire schedule benefited from the informationgathered through the face-to-face interviews. The objec-tive of the questionnaire survey was the identificationof communication behaviours within the selectedscientific communities in Portugal, and the perceptionof the interest and expectancies of these regarding theLIZA initiative. The development of the questionnaireschedule was aimed at easy configuration and anacceptable extension. The questionnaire allowed forlimited and open questions. The first part of the ques-tionnaire was designed to collect information about theperceptions of researchers and academics regardinggrey literature repositories available on the World WideWeb and the use that is made of them. The second partwas designed to evaluate the opinion of the respon-dents regarding the interest and the potential use thatthey might make of the repository to be created withinthe LIZA project. Lastly, and having in mind the vali-dation of results and allowing the dissemination of thefinal report among the respondents, personal data ofrespondents was collected. In order to minimize thecosts of creation and administration of the question-naire, it was made available through the World WideWeb and the responses directly loaded into a databasesuitable for further statistical analysis. Validation of theonline questionnaire was achieved through a pilot on a

small number of respondents from both scientificcommunities. This pilot aimed to pinpoint any faults,deficient questions, ambiguities and potential problemsraised by the questions and respective answers.

Selection of population for study. Universe of thestudy. The selection of the population for the study –Names, Institutions and Emails – was made through asurvey of the Portuguese World Wide Web domain,according to the following criteria:

(i) Mathematics� University Departments of Mathematics,

Statistics and Computer Sciences;� R&D units, financed by the Ministry of Science

and Technology, www.fct.pt/unidades, underthe heading ‘Exact Sciences’ – Mathematics(Ciências Exactas – Matemática);

� Database of holders of research grants of theMinistry of Science and Technology (updated to2 April 2001; www.fct.mct.pt/bolsas (under theheading ‘Exact Sciences’ – Mathematics); thisrefers to Portuguese grant holders developingpost-graduation studies, mainly in foreignUniversities or R&D establishments;

(ii) Agricultural Sciences� departments in the Higher Education sector

(Universities and High Schools of Agriculture inthe Polytechnics);

� R&D units financed by the Ministry of Scienceand Technology, www.fct.pt/unidades, underthe heading ‘Natural Sciences’ – BiologicalSciences and Agricultural Sciences;

� database of holders of research grants of theMinistry of Science and Technology (updated to 2 April 2001; www.fct.mct.pt/bolas, underthe heading ‘Natural Sciences’ – BiologicalSciences, Environment Sciences, Agriculturaland Forest, Animal and Veterinary Sciences).

Although we were aware that, by this approach, weincluded researchers in areas lateral to the AgriculturalSciences, it was the only possible way to guarantee thatwe were not excluding researchers in R&D units whosework is relevant in the context of Agricultural Sciences.

Taking into account that most of the researchers thatcollaborate with R&D units financed by MCT are alsolecturers in higher education institutions, the list ofrecipients was vetted to eliminate any obvious dupli-cations. During May 2001, several electronic mailingswere made to the email addresses identified as above.The email introduced the LIZA initiative and requesteda reply to the questionnaire available at the URL indi-cated in the body of the message at the address

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(http://liza.bn.pt/questionario/questionario.pl). Theanalysis of responses to closed questions was under-taken using the SAS software. The open questions havebeen analysed and the comments were used in an inter-pretation of the results.

The values shown in Table 1 give an account of thetotal number of messages sent, of messages receivedback and the responses. Several factors may havecontributed to the reduced number of responsesreceived (102), corresponding to 7.3% in Mathematicsand 10.9% in Agricultural Sciences, after allowing forthe elimination of non-relevant responses:

(i) There is a possibility that the lists of emailaddresses include old addresses, due to a combina-tion of several factors:� the web pages of the Departments and of the

R&D units are not systematically updated;� the database of the R&D units (Programa de

Financiamento Plurianual, 2000), the uniquepublic source available containing emailaddresses of researchers developing theirresearch activity in Portugal, contained dataavailable at the last update (data correspondingto the situation on 31 December 1999);

(ii) In the case of Agricultural Sciences, all theresearchers and academics in higher educationdepartments/research units of biological, environ-ment sciences, apart from those of Agricultural andForest Sciences, Animal Sciences and Veterinary,were included because it was impossible from theinformation on the web pages to select those specif-ically relevant for Agricultural Sciences; analo-gously, in the sector of Mathematics, in consideringthe Computer Sciences departments it was notexclusively researchers/academics in (Applied)Mathematics that were being addressed. In thiscontext, the results obtained are considered toconvey indications regarding the receptivity/accep-tance of the national research community, relatedto an innovative service like the LIZA project,despite the differing percentages of responses forthe two sectors.

4.3. Analysis of results

Characterization of the genre of scientific production.Tables 2 and 3 show the responses to the questionsaimed at the characterization of production (genre andvolume) of the scientific grey literature, produced bothin print and electronic format. Although the differencesbetween both communities are not significant, it should

be highlighted that in the sector of Mathematics thereis a higher usage of the Internet as a vehicle for commu-nication with colleagues.

Other genres of documents published by the respon-dents in both communities included: articles for jour-nals; conference proceedings; monographs or parts;preprints (exclusively referred to by the mathemati-cians); pedagogical documents including lecture notes;promotional articles.

Usage of archives of scientific grey literature, indigital format. Given the existence of scientific greyliterature archives and questioned about their usage, topublish/archive, search/consult information, theresponses were as shown in Figure 1.

In the area of Mathematics, 13 (34.2%) of respon-dents prefer not to use these archives; 12 (31.6%) usethem for search/consult information and 12 (31.6%)use for both – to publish/archive and search/consultscientific documents.

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Table 1The respondents

Mathematics Agricultural Sciences

Sent 640 676Returned 226 (17.2%)Non-relevant 4 (0.3%)‘Real universe’a 523 552Responses 38 (7.3%) 60 (10.9%)

aObtained by distributing proportionally, between the two sectors,the messages returned from those considered non-relevant, i.e.respondents working in areas that were not specific to Mathematicsand Agricultural Sciences.

Table 2Percentage distribution of respondents producing in print(online) in Agricultural Sciences

Percentage of respondents producing in print (online)

Number of 0 1–2 3–5 6–9 10–15 >15documents

Scientific 25.0 25.0 30.0 8.3 6.7 5.0reports (85.0) (11.7) (3.3) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0)

Conference 6.7 21.7 36.7 15.0 8.3 11.7papers (81.7) (8.3) (5.0) (5.0) (0.0) (0.0)

Theses, 31.7 60.0 6.7 0.0 1.7 0.0dissertations, (98.3) (1.7) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0)etc.

Official 88.3 10.0 1.7 0.0 0.0 0.0documents (98.3) (1.7) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0)



In the area of Agricultural Sciences, 35 respondents(58.3%) do not use these archives, while 15 (25.0%) usethem to search/consult information. Nine (15.0%) saythey use them both to publish/archive and search/consult. Only one uses them to publish scientific docu-ments (Fig. 1).

As was foreseen, we can identify a more intensive useof these types of repositories by mathematicians, behav-iour which is in line with the trend within this commu-nity worldwide: mathematics was one of the fieldscovered by the first eprint archive created – thearXiv.org. When the respondents were asked to identifythe eprints archives most used for publishing, tworespondents in the area of Mathematics referred to thearXiv.org. When asked about the reasons for publishing

there, one respondent said, ‘to collect opinions frompeers in scientific work’ and the other indicated, ‘toobtain visibility’. None of the respondents inAgricultural Sciences use the grey literature reposito-ries to publish/archive scientific documents. Whenquestioned about the use made of these archives forsearch/consult of information, in the case ofMathematics, seven (18.4%) of respondents prefer touse arXiv.org, two (5.3%) the RePEc and 18 (47.4%) to use similar unidentified services. In the area ofAgricultural Sciences, the AgEcon Search and theChemistry Preprint Server are both used by threerespondents (5.0%) each, the RePEc by two (3.3%) and the arXiv.org, Clinmed.Netprints.org, CogPrintsand NCSTRL by one (1.7%) each, although 18 (30.0%)of respondents prefer to use ‘Other’ servers. The highnumber of responses for ‘Other’ servers deserves closerinvestigation. Unfortunately, the respondents did notspecify the repositories that they are actually using.

As can be seen from Fig. 2, regarding the reasons forusing preprint archives to search/consult information,it is evident that similar behaviour patterns occur inboth communities. However, for each category, it isobvious that there is higher interest for these types ofservices among researchers and academics in theMathematics sector.

Opinion about the LIZA initiative. Introduced to theLIZA initiative, which aims to develop a grey literaturearchive in digital format in the National Library ofPortugal, almost all respondents rated this as being ‘veryimportant’ or ‘important’, as can be seen from Fig. 3.

This is strengthened by the high number of respon-dents who reported that: 71.7% would ‘probably’ usethis service and 21.7% would ‘definitely’ use this service to publish their scientific documents inAgricultural Sciences; 68.4% would ‘probably’ use this

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Table 3Percentage distribution of the scientific documentsproduced, in print and available on the Internet, by therespondents, in Mathematics

Percentage of respondents producing in print (online)

Number of 0 1–2 3–5 6–9 10–15 >15documents

Scientific 57.9 18.4 18.4 2.6 0.0 2.6reports (84.2) (10.5) (5.3) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0)

Conference 36.8 21.1 21.1 13.2 7.9 0.0papers (76.3) (10.5) (7.9) (5.3) (0.0) (0.0)

Theses, 44.7 47.7 7.9 0.0 0.0 0.0dissertations, (84.2) (13.2) (2.6) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0)etc.

Official 92.1 5.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.6documents (100.0) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0) (0.0)

60

50

40

30%

20

10

0Publish/Archive Search/Consult Both None

Mathematics

Agricultural Sciences

Fig. 1. Percentage distribution of the usage of archives of scientific grey literature in digital format.



service and 15.8% would ‘definitely’ use this service topublish their scientific documents in Mathematics.

Concerning the relevant reasons for supporting thecreation of this repository in the National Library ofPortugal, there was a wide disparity in the responses,covering all the possibilities offered in the question-naire, as evident from Fig. 4. Nevertheless, the ‘speed’,‘communication’ and the ‘visibility’ of the scientificcommunication obtained are the most prominent.

Those respondents who considered the creation of thearchive, as proposed within the LIZA initiative, to be‘not important’ were in the minority, three and four inAgricultural Sciences and Mathematics respectively. Itis interesting to note that, in the sector of AgriculturalSciences, where there is no tradition of exchange of pre-liminary versions of documents, the use of these reposi-tories is one where respondents demonstrated higherexpectancies. These expectancies may be associated insome way with the multidisciplinary nature ofAgricultural Sciences and by the lack of tradition in the

exchange of preprints, when compared with Mathe-matics. This aspect deserves further investigation.

5. Conclusions

The creation of archives of scientific grey literature, indigital format, over the last decade, is assuming agrowing importance in the context of scientific commu-nication, at least in some domains [45, 46]. In this studyit was our objective to gain some perception of theexpectancies of the national community towards theLIZA initiative. The creation of the LIZA archive by theNational Library of Portugal will enable this institutionto develop strategies concerning the preservation andavailability of that national heritage, as well as to conferinternational visibility to national R&D activity. It hasbeen possible to verify that, among the scientificcommunities approached in this pilot study, the use ofthe Internet to communicate with peers is a common

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60

50

40

30%

20

10

0Access Ease of use Additional

informationTimeliness Others

Mathematics


Fig. 2. Percentage distribution of the use of archives of scientific grey literature archives, in digital format, forconsulting/searching.

60

50

40

30%

20

10

0Very important Important Less important Not important

Mathematics


Fig. 3. Percentage distribution of the importance allocated to the LIZA initiative.



activity, although more prevalent among the Mathe-maticians when compared with the AgriculturalSciences. The use of scientific grey literature archivesin digital format is still made predominantly toconsult/search information and not so much forpublishing/archiving. Here too, there is a noticeableprevalence of Mathematics compared with AgriculturalSciences. Regarding the reasons concerning the use ofsuch repositories it is possible to say that both commu-nities refer to the ‘ease of access’, the ‘access to infor-mation unavailable locally’ and the ‘timeliness of theinformation’ as the main reasons for their use. Whenasked about the importance of an initiative like theLIZA, the majority of the respondents from bothcommunities consider such a project as ‘important’ or‘very important’. This opinion is reinforced by thestatement that, when LIZA exists, they will use it. Thereasons considered as relevant for the creation of suchrepository were widely dispersed. Nevertheless, themost common were ‘easy of use’, ‘speed’ and ‘visi-bility’, of the scientific communication, obtained.

In conclusion it seems possible to consider that, in ageneral way, the LIZA initiative will address some ofthe most important aspirations while overcoming someof the difficulties that the Portuguese scientific nationalcommunity is facing – the facility to search and consultthe most up-to-date information, the search for peersworking in relevant areas, ease of access to nationalscientific production and the promotion/intensificationof the work in collaboration with colleagues in Portugaland abroad working in complementary areas. Finally, itshould be mentioned that one idea was common to theseveral key informants interviewed in the first part ofthis study. According to these interviewees, there is ahuge need for ‘evangelization’ within the scientificcommunities, so that an initiative like LIZA, which canchange and enhance the flow of scientific information

in the country, is nurtured to develop, flourish andsucceed.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the help ofNuno Freire (BN) in producing the Web version of thequestionnaire and of Helena Guerra (ISEGI) for thestatistical analysis of the results.

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Fig. 4. Percentage distribution of perceived underlying benfits for the LIZA initiative.



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