About


RACO (Catalan Journals in Open Access) is a cooperative repository where can be consulted, in open access, the full-text from articles of scientific, cultural and scholar Catalan journals.

The main purpose of RACO is to increase the visibility and consults of the journals included and to spread the scientific and academic production published in Catalan journals. This purpose makes specific in three aims:

– To encourage the electronic edition of Catalan journals
– To be the interface that allows the whole search of all the journals
– To provide the instruments for its preservation

RACO works with the open source program Open Journal Systems (OJS), a software developed by Public Knowledge Project (PKP) with the objective to promote the access to the investigation, making easy the management and publication of scientific journals. This application allows to do, among others, searches by author and/or title of article and by title, subject or the publishing institution of the journal. Of each article it is possible to consult the recommended bibliographic citation and export to Mendeley, statistics, recommend readings to colleagues, the record to include it in the library catalog, etc. It also offers the possibility of subscribing to the alert service of anyone of the journals included to receive by e-mail the notice of the new published issues.

Journals included in RACO are those that contain a table of contents, that have articles of over 3/4 pages and are signed by the author, are published by a Catalan scientific, cultural or scholar institution, or his language is Catalan or his content it’s about history or Catalan culture (more information).

The table of contents and the full-text of articles are introduced in RACO by the own publisher institutions. Most of the journals offer the full-text of all the published issues is offered. Nevertheless, in some journal it can have a delay between the introduction of the table of contents and the full-text (consult the Open Access Policy). The full-text articles included in this repository are freely accessible, but any act of reproduction, distribution, public communication or total or partial transformation is subjected to the conditions of use of each journal and could require the express and written consent of their authors and/or publisher institutions.

Since 2016, RACO offers a professional version. This advanced modality allows institutions not only to use the platform as a repository to increase the visibility of journals, but also as a management and edition tool. The use of this modality entails an economic cost that can be consulted at CSUC’s tariffs.

The RACO repository uses the interoperability protocol created by Open Archives Initiative (OAI) which allows to increase the visibility of the articles published in journals offering oneself together with other international repositories (for example OpenAire). Also, in order to increase the articles dissemination and consults, these are also available through University Union Catalogue of Catalonia (CCUC), and electronic resources databases (such as Ex-Libris and EBSCO). And, thanks to the automatic data export tool, participation in RACO also facilitates journals to be incorporated in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), a database of publications that seeks to increase visibility and to facilitate the use of open access scientific and academic journals.

RACO preservation consists of two tape backup that include all the information available on the repository. These copies are stored in two different locations: one within the same CPD where RACO is stored, and the other is located more than 50 km away to prevent risks, in Lleida (GEPA).

Journals awarded a quality distinction such as the CARHUS Plus+, the FECYT seal, those included in DOAJ or in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), are identified with this distinction on RACO’s website.

Moreover, RACO helps improving the included journals quality thanks to the document “Criteris mínims amb què ha de comptar una revista científica” developed by Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació at Universitat de Barcelona. These criteria are related to the journals formal presentation and to their articles in order to increase their quality and therefore their merits for admission to bibliographic databases and thus get more impact.

RACO is a project of Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya and Biblioteca de Catalunya. It also counts with the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

If you want to take part in RACO or you need more information you can contact raco@csuc.cat.