For better or for worse Knowledge output 1944-2001 and effects of the Legal Deposit Act no. 20/2002 and e-publishing on access to GL in Iceland

• Main Author: Júlíusdóttir, Stefanía
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: TextRelease 2014
• Subjects: Knowledge output; GL; Gegnir; Legal Deposit Act; Iceland
• Online Access: http://greyguiderep.isti.cnr.it/dfdownloadnew.php?ident=GreyGuide/GLP/2014-GL15-016; http://greyguiderep.isti.cnr.it/rmydownload.php?filename=GreyGuide/GLP/2014-GL15-016/2014-GL15-016.pdf; http://greyguiderep.isti.cnr.it/rmydownload.php?filename=GreyGuide/GLP/2014-GL15-016/2014-GL15-016_1.pdf

Two studies are presented in this paper. The former was a study on the amount of knowledge output in Iceland, from 1944 to 2001. It covered all publications issued in Iceland in the sampling years, in the following publication genres: all market publications and GL published in Iceland on paper and catalogued in Gegnir, the national union catalogue, international peer-reviewed journal articles bibliographically accessible in Web of Science (WoS), in addition to patent applications, and standards in Iceland. The findings indicated considerable changes in the knowledge output, in particular increases in GL, international peer reviewed journal articles, and patent applications. They also indicated that GL might increasingly have been produced in-house, and published electronically as the 20th century drew to a close; a trend that continued in the 21st century. Publications produced in-house were often not delivered on legal deposit and the e-medium was not covered by the Legal Deposit Act no. 43/1977 and therefore many a time missing in Gegnir. The latter study was aimed at finding how access to GL developed at the beginning of the 21st century. In particular to find what the effects of the Legal Deposit Act no. 20/2002, which covered e-publications, were on legal deposit in the National and University Library of Iceland (NULI). The findings indicated that amendments are necessary to the Legal Deposit Act no. 20/2002, if the access to written knowledge that used to prevail in Iceland is to be maintained.