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Skyrocketing Use

As of July, visitors to DigitalCommons@ILR have clicked “Download” more than five million times.

ILR's electronic repository of nearly 16,000 workplace-related documents hit the five million mark after downloads soared during the past 12 months.

"It's just over the top. Use is accelerating," said Jim DelRosso, digital projects coordinator for Cornell's Hotel, Labor, and Management Library.

The surge reflects a growing interest in workplace issues, he said. "More and more, these issues are part of the discourse in this country," he said.

Between July 2011 and this July, more than 1.7 million downloads were recorded by DigitalCommons@ILR. That's more than double the 2009 download figure of 565,000.

Soaring downloads are also "a testament to the quality of the content," DelRosso said.

Featuring the work of ILR faculty and researchers, DigitalCommons@ILR opened in 2004 and includes collections of externally produced material selected by librarians and staff at ILR's Catherwood Library for their relevance to the study of workplace issues.

Content ranges from the 2002 collective bargaining agreement between the Amityville Union Free School District and the Amityville Teachers Association to "The Evolution of Unemployment Relief in Great Britain" by Professor George Boyer.

The most frequently downloaded document is one co-authored by ILR Associate Professor Jack Goncalo titled "The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas."

Most visitors arrive at the repository through Google, DelRosso said. While New York City and Ithaca lead locations in numbers of users, "Analytics tell us they come in from all over the world," he said.

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