arXiv started 2015 with an important milestone as we added the one-millionth paper at the end of December’14 December 2014 ( press release & video ). Since its inception in 1991 with a focus on the high energy physics community, arXiv has significantly expanded both its subject coverage and user base. During 2015, the repository saw 105,000 new submissions and over 136 million downloads from all over the world. arXiv has international scope, with submissions and readership from around the world, and collaborations with U.S. and foreign professional societies and other international organizations.
arXiv's funding and governance is based on a membership program that engages libraries and research laboratories worldwide that represent the repository's heaviest institutional users. We are pleased to report that we currently have 188 members representing 23 representing 23 countries. arXiv's sustainability plan is founded on and presents a business model for generating revenues. Cornell University Library (CUL), the Simons Foundation, and a global collective of institutional members support arXiv financially. The financial model for 2013-2017 entails three sources of revenues:
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- Evaluated the arXiv administration processes in light of evolving moderation tools and staffing needs and created and posted a new position (arXiv Operations Manager) to ensure an for an optimal a more productive administrative staffing configuration.
- Reviewed the current arXiv endorsement procedures and policies across all subject categories for seeking greater uniformity and transparency.
- Proposed and modified a new appeal process to work toward uniform policies across all subject categories.
- Continued improving tools and interfaces to allow moderators to interact more directly and efficiently with the arXiv system and administrators based on input from the Scientific Advisory Board and moderators (to be continued in 2016).
- Initiated a process to update, reorganize, and better document the TeX system, which is a central component of our article processing and will continue this project in 2016.
- Added ORCID author identifier support for better interoperability with other repositories implementing authority control and also as a route toward providing institutional statistics for member organizations.
- Began to review and refine the "stock" messages used by arXiv administrators when communicating with submitters and other arXiv users to improve their usefulness.
- Developed a set of questions for assessing and accepting new subject domains to arXiv.
- Piloted an online donation button to experiment with ways to expand arXiv’s revenue sources (generated $16,000 in one week).
- Investigated interoperability requirements to enable communication/exchange between arXiv and institutional repositories.
- Maintained worldwide network of arXiv moderators--over 150 subject experts who verify that submissions Recruited over ?? new moderators as arXiv is a moderated scholarly communication forum informed and guided by scientists and the scientific cultures it serves. Over 150 experts worldwide moderate submissions to verify that they are topical and of interest to the scientific community, follow accepted standards of scholarly communication, and are classified in the appropriate subject categories.
- Held discussions with NSF program managers to better understand how arXiv's ongoing operations and new initiatives might best fit in to NSF programs.
- Held an annual meeting for Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and Member Advisory Board (MAB) to discuss IT development priorities, financial state, moderation tools and policies, and fund raising strategies.
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