NMSU Library launches Digital Commons repository to expand access to university research and scholarship

New Mexico State University faculty, students and staff now have a new platform to share and preserve their research, teaching and creative work with audiences in New Mexico and around the world.

The NMSU Library has launched Digital Commons @ NMSU, an open access institutional repository designed to collect, showcase, manage and preserve the university community’s scholarly and creative work in one central location.  

“Digital Commons @ NMSU reveals work that might otherwise be hidden behind a paywall or not shared at all,” said Meg Eastwood, institutional scholarship librarian at NMSU. “Open access makes NMSU’s work more available to New Mexico and to new audiences around the world, raising the visibility of our faculty, students, staff and NMSU as a whole.”  

The repository provides a centralized, searchable platform where NMSU researchers and creators can share a wide range of materials, including article manuscripts, book chapters, books, conference materials, datasets, audiovisual materials, images and teaching materials.  

“Digital Commons @ NMSU gives our faculty and students a powerful platform to share their research, teaching and creative work with a global audience,” said Kevin Comerford, dean of the NMSU Library. “It also strengthens our ability to showcase campus collections like the Zuhl Collection and to preserve the academic, cultural and student activities that shape NMSU.”  

By making this work more accessible, Digital Commons @ NMSU can help strengthen connections across the university and beyond. Departments can discover research and scholarship taking place across campus, prospective students can explore examples of NMSU student work, and community and business partners can more easily identify potential collaborators at the university.  

The platform also offers tools to support long-term sharing and preservation. Digital Commons @ NMSU provides unlimited storage, supports any file type and can assign digital object identifiers, or DOIs, to original materials. Authors and creators also receive monthly readership reports showing views and downloads of their work, as well as mentions on social media.  

NMSU faculty, students and staff can work with the library to create customized collections for departments, projects, campus organizations and other initiatives. The platform can also host peer-reviewed journals and serve as an archive for conferences and other academic events.  

Eastwood encourages members of the NMSU community to consider what work they have that could be shared through the repository.  

“We invite you to consider the possibilities of our new Digital Commons @ NMSU system and imagine what you could share,” Eastwood said.  

The library can also help researchers navigate copyright and open-access considerations. For previously published articles, library staff can review publisher sharing permissions to determine what can legally be deposited in the repository. Authors can also select a Creative Commons license to specify how others may use their work.  

“One of the biggest misconceptions about open access is that you have to give up all rights to your work,” Eastwood said. “We’ll help you choose a Creative Commons license that allows you to specify which rights you want to retain.”  

Sharing an article manuscript through Digital Commons @ NMSU can also provide an open-access option without requiring authors to pay an article processing charge.  

NMSU faculty, students and staff interested in contributing their work to Digital Commons @ NMSU can contact Eastwood at eastmeg@nmsu.edu to get started.