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   Press Release: June 19, 2008 www.policyarchive.org   

New Online Archive of Policy Research Launched

PolicyArchive "Brings World's Policy Research Online,"
With Free User Searches, Contributor Self-Uploads,
Over 12,000 Policy Documents and 220 Research Contributors

PolicyArchive (www.PolicyArchive.org), the nation's first free, comprehensive, online archive of public policy research, was launched today by the non-profit Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) in partnership with the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) University Library and support from major U.S. charitable foundations.

PolicyArchive plans to become the largest online repository of public policy research in the world. At its launch, the archive already contains over 12,000 policy documents from over 220 think tanks and other research organizations. It will house up to 20,000 documents by the end of 2008.

"PolicyArchive builds an online bridge between the worlds of public policy research and legislative implementation," says Tracy Westen, CEO of the Center for Governmental Studies. "PolicyArchive will put high quality, current research instantly at policymakers' finger tips."

Contributors: Current contributors to PolicyArchive include the Aspen Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Cato Institute, Center for American Progress, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause, Congressional Research Service, Economic Policy Institute, Hudson Institute, Lithuanian Center for Strategic Studies, Mathematica Policy Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, National Center for Policy Analysis, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, New America Foundation, Public Policy Institute of California, RAND, Reason Foundation and the Southern Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics and Evaluation, among others. View the full list of PolicyArchive contributors.


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Need: Sound research is critical to public policy in a world that grows more complex every day. But locating and obtaining this research online can be difficult or impossible, and researchers looking for different perspectives on controversial issues often get frustrated hunting through the Web sites of myriad organizations.

Solution: PolicyArchive changes all that. It lets users view research online, free of charge, covering 306 subtopics and contributed by a wide range of nonprofit, educational, governmental, private and international think tanks and research organizations.

Features: PolicyArchive enables publishers to upload their own research and make it freely available to legislators, policymakers, scholars, citizens and others. The site contains summaries and full texts of research, a subject index, an internal search engine, research synopses, sign-up newsletters and email notifications of new research. The next version will feature online communities, user ratings and reviews, personalized "bookshelves" and information on researchers and funders.

Benefits: PolicyArchive will help elected officials and their staffs, policy researchers and charitable foundations:
  • Public Officials: Legislators and legislative staff too often make important policy decisions without access to the most recent policy research. PolicyArchive will make that research instantly accessible, and policy decisions will improve as a result.

  • Researchers: Policy researchers often find it difficult to distribute their research to the users who need it, when they need it. PolicyArchive will give research contributors instant and worldwide access to policymakers and other researchers who can then build on that research.

  • Foundations: Foundations spend over $1.5 billion annually on research-and others spend more—but too often that research is difficult to find or disappears altogether. PolicyArchive will make foundation-supported research quickly and easily available, thereby dramatically enhancing the value of foundation grants.

Funding: A number of major U.S. charitable foundations have supported PolicyArchive, including the California HealthCare Foundation, California Endowment, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Joyce Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Markle Foundation and Charles H. Revson Foundation.

Partnerships: The Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) has partnered with the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) University Library, one of the most technologically sophisticated libraries in the United States, to build PolicyArchive.

"Partnering with CGS allows us to build on the model for the 21st century academic library and be a leader in providing long term open access to public policy research," says David Lewis, Dean, IUPUI University Library. "We are pleased to be part of this important project."

The partnership combines CGS' experience in public policy research, Web site and database development, fundraising and outreach, coupled with the Library's expertise in document indexing, archiving and retrieving, overseeing large databases of philanthropic and academic research, and coordinating electronic document storage and retrieval with other libraries.

State of Art Technology: "PolicyArchive can now easily share its content with—and be accessible through—over 300 other libraries worldwide," says Romulo Rivera, Project Manager for PolicyArchive. "PolicyArchive is also the most innovative application of DSpace, a leading library content management system."


CGS Logo CGS (www.cgs.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization, founded in 1983, that creates innovative political and media solutions to help individuals participate more effectively in their communities and governments. CGS built the California Channel, the largest statewide system of legislative television coverage; the Democracy Network, one of the nation's first online sources of candidate information; ConnectLA, the first online resource of information for economically disadvantaged communities; Video Voter, a catalyst for on-demand video voter information; HealthVote, a comprehensive information resource for California health-related ballot measures; and CalHealthReform, a Web site that tracks important health care legislation.


IUPUI Logo The IUPUI University Library (www.ulib.iupui.edu) is part of the Indiana University-Purdue University system and is committed to the enhancement and transformation of information technology. IUPUI has achieved national recognition for its strength in life science research, information technology, and the arts and humanities. The IUPUI University Library has spent over 20 years documenting the field of philanthropy, as shown in its world-renowned library and archival collections. For PolicyArchive, IUPUI is providing database and Web servers, bandwidth, document submission management, metadata quality control, system administration and development of the index.


To learn more about PolicyArchive, contact Romulo Rivera, Policy Archive Project Manager, at (310) 470-6590 ext. 123, or by e-mail at rrivera@cgs.org; or Tracy Westen, CEO of CGS, at (310) 470-6590 ext. 114, or by email at twesten@cgs.org.