CWRU Law’s Scholarly Commons Surpasses 2.85 million downloads

Professor Sharona Hoffman

As of Sept. 1, 2020, CWRU Law School's Scholarly Commons has had over 2.85 million downloads worldwide. Launched five years ago, Scholarly Commons features 12 electronic collections ranging from faculty publications and student-edited journals to multidisciplinary journals, including the recently added International Journal of Ethical Leadership, edited by law school Co-Dean Scharf and Professor Shannon French, director of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence. 

Milestones for selected collections include more than 585,500 downloads of faculty publications; more than one million downloads of Case Western Reserve Law Review articles; more than 685,00 downloads of articles from the Journal of International Law; more than 149,000 downloads from Health Matrix; and more than 67,000 downloads from the Journal of Law, Technology, and the Internet.  

A newly added thirteenth collection features 1,352 alumni publications with over 625,000 downloads. About half of the alumni publications are law review notes written by alumni. The library also has been adding archival videos to Scholarly Commons.

“With COVID-19, the impact of scholarship is more important than ever and Scholarly Commons is a great tool to provide our faculty, student and alumni research to the widest audience possible,” said Joseph Custer, Director of the Law Library.  “It makes it possible for the law library to track and report the impact our prolific faculty's work is having around the world.”