A Northwestern Law paper ranked #11 on the social media site reddit in 2015! In a triumph for open access, Northwestern University Law posted backfiles for its law journals and got a great surprise when one of their papers was highly ranked on reddit. In one day this event spiked downloads on this paper in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology to over 30,000 readers, as you can see in the screenshots below.
The 1912 paper was written by criminologist Arthur MacDonald and suggested making it a misdemeanor to name assassins publicly, stating that “This would lessen the hope for glory, renown or notoriety, which is a great incentive to such crimes.”
This speaks to the importance of posting older material in the IR, as well as the power of open access—you never know who will be reading your institution’s academic output. Congratulations to the IR team at Northwestern Law!
Screenshot of downloads on October 7th, 2015.
Screenshot of downloads on October 8th, 2015.
