Blackstone leads Digital Commons downloads
“Gender Roles and Society,” a 2003 encyclopedia entry by University of Maine sociology professor Amy Blackstone, is the most downloaded, full-text article currently available in DigitalCommons@UMaine.
“It is tremendously gratifying to know that my work has reached such a large audience. I’m stunned,” Blackstone says of the article’s nearly 20,300 downloads.
Although the Digital Commons Readership Distribution map shows the article has been downloaded worldwide and by organizations as diverse as the Department of Defense and the Directorate of E-Government Kenya, by far, the greatest number of downloads occur at educational institutions in the American Mid- and Northwest.
“Without Digital Commons, very few people would have ever seen the piece. It’s a good reminder that while citations of one’s work is a worthy and important measure of impact, the impact of our work can be seen in other ways as well,” Blackstone says.
For help getting started self-archiving your scholarly work in Digital Commons, contact Kimberly Sawtelle at kimberly.sawtelle@maine.edu or your library subject specialist.