Open Access Repositories

Repositories serve an essential role in distributing scholarly content. Some host pre-publication content (preprints), while others host Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM; peer-reviewed). Repositories can be categorized as follows:

• Discipline/Subject - Repositories which accept content within a discipline. arXiv (physics, math, computer science) and bioArXiv (biology) are examples.
• Institutional - Repositories such as UVA's Libra (LibraOpen) which host any type of material from a specific institution.
• Funder - Repositories that are maintained by grant-funders, to host and disseminate the results of funded research. The NIH-funded PubMed Central is an example.
• Generalist - Repositories that accept content of any type and on any subject. Zenodo is an example.

Libra is UVA's Institutional Repository, managed by the University Library. It is composed of three separate repositories to host the scholarly, creative, and research output of the UVA community:

• LibraOpen for Open Access manuscripts, books, and presentations,
• LibraData for Open Access datasets and software, and
• LibraETD for UVA's dissertations and theses.

OpenDOAR - The Directory of Open Access Repositories is a searchable database of academic open access repositories.

Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) - allows you to refine your search by country, software, repository type, Library of Congress call number and institutional association. ROAR is hosted by the University of Southampton, UK.

arXiv - The original preprint server, started at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg, moved to Cornell in 2001. It accepts moderated submissions in physics (including astronomy/astrophysics), mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. It currently hosts over 2.4 million preprints.

bioRxiv - Modeled after arXiv to host preprints in biology. Founded in 2013 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, it is now hosted by openRxiv and it currently hosts over 300,000 preprints

ChemRxiv - Owned by the American Chemical Society, the Chinese Chemical Society, the Chemical Society of Japan, the German Chemical Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. Created in 2017, it currently hosts over 34,000 preprints.

DOE PAGES - Department of Energy Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (DOE PAGES). Created by the DOE/OSTI to host AAMs from DOE-funded researchers.

ERIC - Institute of Education Sciences Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). All IES-funded researchers must post a full-text version of their published article in ERIC immediately upon publication.

Knowledge Commons Works (KCWorks; formerly Humanities Commons CORE) Repository - This humanities centered repository was started by Columbia Univeristity and the Modern Language Association, and has been supported by Michigan State University since 2020.

medRxiv - Hosted by openRxiv (along with bioRxiv), medRxiv is a preprint server for medical research. It was founded in 2019 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Yale, and the British Medical Journal. It currently hosts over 70,000 preprints.

NSF PAR - National Science Foundation Public Access Repository (NSF PAR) is the designated repository where NSF-funded investigators deposit peer-reviewed, published journal articles and juried conference papers.

PubMed Central - Free full-text archive of biomedical and health science literature. Created by the National Institutes of Health and the National Libraries of Medicine. PMC contains both peer-reviewed Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) and some journal articles, as well as non-peer reviewed preprints. As of July 2025, NIH-funded authors are required to submit their AAMs in PubMed Central upon publication.