Several colleges are now looking to share more of that work by building "institutional repositories" online and inviting their professors to upload copies of their research papers, data sets, and other work.
Some imagine a day when every research university gives its research away through the Web, allowing scholars and nonacademics to mine it for ideas and information.
Institutional repositories could create an alternative to journals, fans of the archives say.
Journal publishers, meanwhile, say that such repositories are unlikely to supplant their publications.
Journals, they argue, are still the best means of distributing and preserving research.
And even some of those supporting the new archives recognize the difficulty of getting professors to change their habits.
"We've had pretty serious interest in the system from about 30 major institutions," Ms.
What: Massachusetts Institute of Technology's project to develop a superarchive, as well as software tools for creating and maintaining the repository.
The tools will be offered to other colleges that want to use them.
When: DSpace has been under development for two years.
The university is testing it this summer, and plans to make the software available free to anyone in the fall, when the university will invite all professors at MIT to contribute to its archive.
What: Free software developed at the University of Southampton, in Britain, to help individual scholars, departments, or universities create archives of research papers online.
An updated version was released this year.
What: A series of "metadata" codes that librarians or others can attach to research papers to help search engines pull out desired information.
Universities are funded out of taxation. The fruits of their research should be made available to all, for the benefit of all.
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