“I’m a graduating senior from Yeshiva College, and I recently published my research with a team of doctors at Montefiore. I would be happy to provide it as open access in YAIR, and I’ve attached it to this email.” Amitai Miller’s recent scholarly article, “Are we responding effectively to bone mineral density loss and fracture risks in people with epilepsy?” was recently published in Epilepsia Open, a notable medical journal this spring. Amitai’s request to Scholarly Communication Librarian Stephanie Gross reflects a growing trend among faculty members and students to share intellectual output on YAIR, the university’s institutional repository. YAIR offers faculty members and students the benefits of emphasizing their university affiliation and disseminating their research to a global audience.
Since the repository’s inception two years ago, 6,111 students, professors, and editors of student publications have discovered YAIR as a platform for their intellectual and creative work. Although largely textual in format, the repository includes videos of book talks by YU faculty. The project is retrospective as well as current in scope. Back issues of student journals and master’s theses not seen by the public in decades are being digitized and shared full-text via the repository. Topics range from Hebraica-Judaica to STEM. Some of the most popular titles to date are The Commentator, The Observer, Gesher, and Derech Hateva. Chapters from Orthodox Forum, a YU Press/Michael Scharf series, now appear on electronic reserves pages.
Chair of the Stern College Physics Department Lea Santos has shared many of her recent papers to YAIR, as well as to the OA (Open Access) platform arXiv at Cornell University. Daniel Pollack, Professor in the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, routinely self-archives his advice columns on the intersection of law and social work.
Contributors to YAIR sign a release form that designates that their work is copyright-protected with a Creative Commons non-commercial, no-derivatives license. Retrospective journals that are the university’s intellectual property are published as complete volumes with editors and advisors acknowledged. Honors theses authors may opt out of open access and allow only university-community members to view their work. In spring 2020 researchers as far away as Spain and Israel requested access to YU student theses. While some of the theses requested are recent, others date as far back as 1946, and are also discoverable via the library online catalog. Since some of the authors are no longer alive, relatives are contacted for consent. Thus, master’s theses hidden for decades in a dark basement are now brought to light for a global audience.
YAIR testimonials:
Daniel Pollack, Professor, Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University
“Having articles posted on YAIR ensures not only their timely visibility, it also provides a permanent home for them. I am very grateful to have this repository available for faculty use.”
Matthaeus Kestenbaum, graduate student, Ben-Gurion University
“As a student in an overseas university, being able to access a digitized copy of the thesis I needed was of unparalleled help for me. Very little has been written on the topic I am researching, and the YU library was able to send me a rare gem from the 1960s, which will greatly impact my work. The courteousness and speed of the staff was greatly appreciated. Thank you, Yeshiva University, for making such theses accessible!”
–Stephanie L. Gross, Scholarly Communication Librarian
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