Oya Y. Rieger
Associate University Librarian & arXiv Program Director
Cornell University
Martin Lessmeister
arXiv IT Lead
Cornell University
Sandy Payette
Chief Technology Officer, arXiv
Cornell University
arXiv.org is acknowledged as one of the most successful open-access preprint repositories; it has transformed scholarly communication in multiple fields of physics and plays an increasingly prominent role in mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, and statistics. Using the 25th anniversary of arXiv as an important milestone, during the last year, the arXiv team at the Cornell University Library (CUL) has engaged in a series of vision-setting activities to assess the service from various perspectives. The process involved gathering feedback from the arXiv’s advisory boards, conducting a user survey to seek opinions, and convening a technical infrastructure (IT) workshop. Inspired and equipped by the input gathered, and with generous grant funding from the Sloan Foundation, the arXiv team is preparing to embark on a three-year initiative to take a fresh view of how the Next Generation arXiv (arXiv-NG) can be re-architected for long-term durability and for improving the overall user experience for the scientific community. The goal of the presentation is to highlight the key findings of the review process, especially the user study, and discuss the implications for the arXiv-NG planning process. The team aims to create a comprehensive plan that factors in a range of issues extending from architectural choices to sustainability requirements, and from policy issues to governance matters. An integral part of this initiative will be networking with other related initiatives and striving to serve the broader scientific community. The ultimate goal is ensuring that arXiv continues to serve its essential role in facilitating science based on the needs of the user community, as well as responding to evolving scholarly communication practices.
