Abstract

The e-artexte digital repository was launched in February 2013 by Artexte, a contemporary art documentation center. It offers publishers in the visual arts, such as museums, galleries, artist-run centers, independent curators, and artists, the opportunity to self-archive their publications and critical writing in a thematic repository focused on contemporary art in Canada from 1965 to today. This presentation will describe the deposit process, using as a case study the Montreal-based, artist-run center Skol. Skol publishes a variety of documentation including catalogues, critical exhibition texts, and artists' publications. Like many publishers in the visual arts, they seek new ways to make their publications more widely available. Skol and Artexte worked together to deposit all of Skol's publications that existed in digital format into e-artexte. This presentation will describe the process of depositing publications in an open access repository, including licensing options, embargo periods, file formats, and other considerations for self-archiving. The questions raised in this process will be of interest to any institution interested in experimenting with open access publishing in the arts.