January 14, 2025

Last month, Libraries staff added the 100,000^th research asset to Drexel Research Discovery, the University’s research repository, marking the latest milestone in the Libraries’ efforts to provide a comprehensive database of Drexel research and scholarly work.

The Libraries launched Drexel Research Discovery five years ago after retiring iDEA, the University’s first digital repository. The repository, which has expanded by almost 700% over the last two years alone, provides access to the research, scholarship, and creative work produced by Drexel faculty, staff, and students, including theses and dissertations, books, journal articles, conference papers, creative works, and data sets.

“We’re so excited to see this all come together through the hard work of our staff and to be well on our way to our goal of creating a comprehensive repository of Drexel work,” said Ann C. Yurcaba, Interim University Librarian. “Providing and maintaining this dynamic repository on behalf of the University is a key part of the Libraries’ work to help increase the visibility of Drexel research and support future research and collaborations, and this is truly an important milestone.”

The repository also provides researcher profiles, which help showcase Drexel faculty expertise to attract funders and new students and enhance Drexel’s academic reputation. Profiles highlight the full depth and breadth of faculty expertise and can help facilitate global collaborations. Members of the Drexel community can update their own profiles, which can be populated with details about publications, awarded grants, creative works, achievements, and academic activities.

Profiles also make it easy for researchers to promote their work and maintain their CVs. Researchers can connect their Drexel Research Discovery profiles to their ORCID profiles, which allows the system to send automatic updates to ORCID, saving faculty time.

“We’re always looking for new ways to support our researchers’ journeys,” explained Discovery Librarian Hannah Purtymun, who helps manage the Drexel Research Discovery repository. “Researcher profiles make that journey a little easier—they provide Drexel researchers with an easy way to disseminate their research publications and keep track of their projects, awarded grants, and integrates with other research management tools such as ORCID, Scopus, and Web of Science.”

About Drexel Research Discovery

Explore the Drexel Research Discovery repository online or visit our online guide for FAQs, information on building your researcher profile, and instructions on linking your profile with ORCID.

Help us improve this dynamic and growing collection! If you identify information gaps or inaccuracies or want to learn more about this collection and how it can benefit you, contact us.