eScholarship@UMMS, UMass Medical School’s digital archive and publishing system offering worldwide access to the research and scholarly work of the University of Massachusetts Medical School community, reached a significant milestone when it topped 1 million downloads on February 17, 2016.
A service of the Medical School’s Lamar Soutter Library, eScholarship@UMMS was launched in 2006. eScholarship@UMMS brings together the University's scholarly output in order to maximize its readership and impact and to help individual researchers and departments organize and disseminate their research beyond the walls of the Medical School. The growing archive includes more than 17,000 journal articles, dissertations, posters, presentations, reports, research datasets, and other items authored by UMMS faculty, staff, and students. Visitors from 207 countries and territories have downloaded materials from eScholarship@UMMS over the years, as shown in this readership distribution map:
Celebrating the 1 Millionth Download
The honor of the 1 millionth download goes to Evidence Based Practices in Mental Health: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Research Considerations by Colleen McKay, MA, CAGS, assistant professor of psychiatry. This paper, published through eScholarship@UMMS as an issue of Psychiatry Information in Brief, is one of the most downloaded works in eScholarship@UMMS (as seen in the Top 10 Downloads). Psychiatry Information in Brief is a journal devoted to the dissemination of behavioral health information produced by the Systems and Psychosocial Advances Research Center (SPARC) in the Department of Psychiatry at UMMS.
“eScholarship@UMMS and the Psychiatry Information in Brief publications are a great way for the Program for Clubhouse Research to rapidly disseminate our research findings,” said McKay, who is the Director of the Program for Clubhouse Research, a major initiative of SPARC. “The Program for Clubhouse Research collaborates with Clubhouse International and over 300 clubhouse programs in 34 countries and 37 states. eScholarship@UMMS is a highly effective mechanism for us to disseminate information to Clubhouse Programs and our international network of researchers and stakeholders that study the effectiveness of Clubhouse Model programs. The Readership Map provides an excellent visualization of the global reach and impact of our work.”
“eScholarship@UMMS has been a game changer for us in the Department of Psychiatry and at the Systems and Psychosocial Advances Research Center,” said Kathleen Biebel, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and co-director of SPARC. “It is a fantastic platform for knowledge translation and dissemination of our research, and massively expands our reach and capacity to share findings from our research with all sorts of stakeholders – researchers, people with lived mental health experience, family members, providers, laypeople – all over the world. What's great about eScholarship@UMMS is that we can document and measure this reach – the usage statistics help us identify what areas of research are particularly relevant at any given point in time, and where people are downloading our products.”
Director of Library Services Elaine Martin, DA, said, “eScholarship@UMMS is an important tool for documenting the scholarly output of UMMS faculty, staff and students. The Lamar Soutter Library takes seriously its responsibility to provide access to scholarly works highlighting the institution’s research and education missions. I’m thrilled that we can recognize a paper by the Department of Psychiatry and the Systems and Psychosocial Advances Research Center, as they have been an early partner in this endeavor.”
Contribute to eScholarship@UMMS
Faculty, researchers, staff, and students associated with UMass Medical School are invited to deposit their digital materials. For more information about participating in eScholarship@UMMS, visit the eScholarship@UMMS Guide, the FAQ, or contact Lisa Palmer at the Lamar Soutter Library.
Content archived in over 100 collections in eScholarship@UMMS includes student works, peer-reviewed journals, research data, conference proceedings, and e-books. eScholarship@UMMS is a member of the Digital Commons Network, which brings together open access scholarly papers from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.