The higher education institution’s Scientific Library to play the role of an open archive

Abstract

The role of the higher education institutions’ libraries in building and maintaining the institution’s open archives is highlighted. The author emphasize that open archives are demanded highly by the scientific community as the data is free. The open archive structured by disciplinary or interdisciplinary principle can become the base for informal associations (collaborations, consortia, etc.) around science schools or research centers (faculties, institutions, universities, research organizations). Expanded functionalities and instruments to get scientometric indicators are analyzed in detail. These functions make the alternative source for measuring scientific performance of organizations and individual researchers systematically and adequately. The librarians responsibilities related to collecting and preparing scientometric indicators are highlighted. The open archives, institutional repositories, e-libraries can provide both traditional scientometric indicators (impact factors, Hirsch index, etc.), and alternative metrics (publication web indicators). Scientometric data collection, accumulation, interpretation and preparation are continuously expanding processes and they enhance the librarians’ roles.