Academic authors and open archives: A survey in the social science field

This paper reports on a survey of the academic staff of the Faculties of Economics and Law of the University of Brescia, Italy The survey sought to determine knowledge and use of Open-Access archives and to verify the conditions stated by the correspondents for their participation in an institutional Open-Access initiative. The response rate to the questionnaire was 57.9% (62 authors). Results show that 44% of the respondents (25 of 57) knew about the existence of Open-Access initiatives and archives. Of those aware of the existence of Open-Access archives, only 4% (1 in 25) affirmed they had already used them to deposit papers, while 33% (16 of 48), among those who declared they use materials freely available on the Web, affirmed they had used an Open-Access disciplinary archive. Sixty-one percent (41 of 62) of the respondents answered they were prepared to archive personally their own scientific or educational material in an institutional repository, once the conditions that they request have been fulfilled. The study illustrates the crucial role that authors play in the process of diffusion of Open-Access initiatives.