2009/06/30 by Anne Gentil-Beccot, Anne Gentil‐Beccot, Salvatore Mele +6 · 2 citations
Computer Science · Decision Sciences · #Digital Libraries (cs.DL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Research Data Management Practices #Scientific Computing and Data Management #cs.DL #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0906.5418
Version to be published in Scientometrics
openalex publication_date 2009/06/30 · arxiv created 2009/11/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Contemporary scholarly discourse follows many alternative routes in addition to the three-century old tradition of publication in peer-reviewed journals. The field of High- Energy Physics (HEP) has explored alternative communication strategies for decades, initially via the mass mailing of paper copies of preliminary manuscripts, then via the inception of the first online repositories and digital libraries. This field is uniquely placed to answer recurrent questions raised by the current trends in scholarly communication: is there an advantage for scientists to make their work available through repositories, often in preliminary form? Is there an advantage to publishing in Open Access journals? Do scientists still read journals or do they use digital repositories? The analysis of citation data demonstrates that free and immediate online dissemination of preprints creates an immense citation advantage in HEP, whereas publication in Open Access journals presents no discernible advantage. In addition, the analysis of clickstreams in the leading digital library of the field shows that HEP scientists seldom read journals, preferring preprints instead.