The purpose of this guide is to support librarians working with CUNY's open access institutional repository, Academic Works. If you have additional questions or would like to provide feedback about the guide, please email AcademicWorks@cuny.edu
Check out the Guide to CUNY Academic Works for up-to-date information about submitting to the repository.
CUNY Academic Works is a service of the CUNY Libraries dedicated to collecting and providing access to the research, scholarship, and creative and pedagogical work of the City University of New York. In service to CUNY’s mission as a public university, content in Academic Works is freely available to all.
It aims to:
CUNY Academic Works provides for the access to and preservation of a full range of scholarship, including faculty research such as articles and conference presentations; educational materials; student works such as theses, dissertations, and prize papers; scholarly journals published by or associated with the University; and digitized archival documents from CUNY’s libraries and special collections.
Content is selected for inclusion by the individual libraries, in consultation with the CUNY Office of Library Services (OLS). All content must meet the following criteria:
January 2025: CUNY Academic Works launches redesign of the site to improve reader and author user experience.
July 2024: CUNY Academic Works passes 15,000,000 downloads -- with 31,597 works including 7,400+ journal articles, 1,600+ open educational resources (OER), and 5,800+ electronic theses, dissertations, and capstones.
March 2017: CUNY Academic Works reaches 500,000 downloads.
December 2016: Megan Wacha, former University Scholarly Communications Librarian at OLS, and each of the campus Academic Works Coordinators receive the CUNY-wide Excellence in Academic Technology Award for their collaborative work supporting CUNY Academic Works.
May 2016: CUNY Academic Works hits 10,000 items in the repository.
May 2016: OLS expands its publishing services to include CUNY affiliated journals. Urban Library Journal migrates to Digital Commons and OLS publishes its first original journal, Art History Pedagogy and Practice, in collaboration with Art History Teaching Resources at the CUNY Graduate Center.
September 2015: All colleges and schools across CUNY launch their first collections in CUNY Academic Works. The Graduate Center's repository is folded into CUNY Academic Works, which is redesigned to enable and highlight individual campus branding.
March 2015: OLS hosts the Academic Works Kick-off and the Academic Works Roadshow, prompting campus libraries to create their first collections in CUNY Academic Works.
January 2015: OLS hires Megan Wacha to be CUNY’s Scholarly Communications Librarian and launched CUNY Academic Works.
March 2014: The Graduate Center unveils its institutional repository, Graduate Center Academic Works (now part of CUNY Academic Works). Also, CUNY OLS announces its intention to create a repository that includes every campus.
September 2012: The Open Access Advisory Group begins a university-wide educational effort about the need for, and many benefits of, open access in general and a CUNY repository in particular.
January 2012: University Faculty Senate creates the Open Access Advisory Group to explore possibilities for an institutional repository and work toward making the resolution a reality.
November 2011: CUNY’s University Faculty Senate passes a resolution in support of the creation of a CUNY-wide institutional repository.