Timeline - Érudit

1996-1997

The Presses de l’Université de Montréal (PUM) create a digital publishing department, the earliest incarnation of Érudit. Its operations focus on the transition of scholarly journals towards digital formats. With support from a Quebec government agency, a digital publishing trial project is launched and the first five digital journals are produced in SGML.

1998

The original version of the Érudit platform is launched.

1999

Digitization of the first retroactive collections using archives from Meta and Sociologie et sociétés.

2000

Creation of an interuniversity group for digital publishing [Groupe interuniversitaire pour l’édition numérique (GIEN)] to oversee Érudit, in order to meet the Canadian academic community’s need for a structure offering digital publishing services. It is comprised of the Université de Montréal’s information and communication technologies department [Direction des technologies de l’information et de la communication], the provincial scientific information network [Réseau d’informations scientifiques du Québec (RISQ)], the Presses de l’Université de Montréal, the Presses de l’Université Laval, the dissemination department of the research and creation branch of the Université du Québec à Montréal [Direction de la diffusion du Service de la recherche et de la creation] and the Université Laval library. This group led to the creation of the Érudit consortium Érudit in 2004.

2001

Launch of the second version of the Érudit platform, with four sections for various research documents in HSS (Journals, Books, Prepublications, and Dissertations). Érudit then disseminates over 6,000 documents in open access.

2004

Creation of the Érudit consortium, in the form of a general partnership, whose partners are Université de Montréal, Université Laval and Université du Québec à Montréal.

2006

Érudit starts disseminating scholarly journals behind a moving wall (subscription-based access to issues published over the last two years and open access to the rest of the archives) and launches its subscription management services. Érudit then disseminates over 15,000 articles.

2010

Launch of the third version of the platform with value-added services: advanced search features, trilingual platform, records available for exportation, etc.

2010

Launch of a retrospective digitization project for cultural journals members of the Société de développement des périodiques culturels québécois (SODEP). 250,000 pages are digitized, and access to over 60,000 articles is provided online thanks to a Canadian Heritage grant awarded to the SODEP.

2013

Consolidation of the Dissertations section through an agreement signed with four Canadian Universities: UQAM, UQAT, UQTR, UQAC. Thanks to this project, over 55 000 master’s and doctoral dissertations are referenced on the platform as of 2013.

2015

The Partnership in support of open access to scholarly journals is established between 107 Canadian journals and 53 university libraries, in collaboration with the CRKN.

2016

Creation of the Open Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CO-SHS). Funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation and overseen by Prof. Vincent Larivière (Université de Montréal), CO-SHS aims to unravel a national digital research infrastructure dedicated to the production, aggregation, enrichment as well as computerized exploration of critical data in the humanities and social sciences published

2017

Launch of the fourth version of the Érudit platform to improve the reading experience, optimize document distribution and referencing, and anticipate the arrival of new services. More than 150,000 articles are now available on the platform.

2018

Launch of Coalition Publica, an initiative of Érudit and PKP to bring together Canadian scholarly journal publishers, academic libraries and researchers.

2020

Funding for Coalition Publica’s operations by the Pan-Canadian Knowledge Access Initiative program created by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

2021

The Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) strengthens their support for Érudit’s services through the AGORA program. This support consolidates the links between Érudit and the FRQSC, and ensures the digital treatment of funded and recommended journals.

To find out more:

Beaudry, G., Boucher, M., Niemann, T. & Boismenu, G. (2009). Érudit : le numérique au service de l’édition en sciences humaines et sociales. Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture, 1 (1). https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/038637ar

Boismenu, G. & Beaudry G. (2014), Du concept à l’outil : penser et instrumenter l’édition numérique de revues savantes, Les revues à l’ère numérique. https://www.erudit.org/fr/livres/hors-collection/partie-iii-les-revues-a-lere-numerique/000262li/

Cameron-Pesant, S. (2018). Usage et diffusion des revues savantes québécoises en sciences sociales et humaines : analyse des téléchargements de la plateforme Érudit. Recherches sociographiques, 59 (3), 365–384. https://doi.org/10.7202/1058719ar

Cameron-Pesant, S., Sainte-Marie, M., Jansen, Y. & Larivière, V. (2018). Criminologie à portée de clic : analyse de l’usage de la revue numérique. Criminologie, 51 (1), 111–142. https://doi.org/10.7202/1045310ar

Canal Savoir (2018) « La création de la plateforme Érudit », https://savoir.media/erudit/clip/la-creation-de-la-plateforme-erudit

Henry, G., Van Bellen S., Niemann, T (2023). « Retour sur 25 ans de développement de la plateforme Érudit » Assises de la francophonie scientifique 2023. https://apropos.erudit.org/25years-erudit/?lang=en

Paquin, É. (2013). Les modèles économiques de l’accès libre : réflexions à partir de l’expérience d’Érudit. Documentation et bibliothèques, 59 (3), 155–160. https://doi.org/10.7202/1018845ar

Vanasse, A. (2010). Le projet « Érudit ». Lettres québécoises, (138), 3–3. https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/62355ac

Ward, M., & Lavoie, J. (2016). A library-publisher partnership for open access: building an innovative relationship between scholarly publishers and academic libraries. LIBER Quarterly, 25(4), 189–204. http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10139