The Use of International Repositories and the Definition of the TA Research Field: The Case of RePEc

Some very large international repositories can organise bibliographic references around re-search topics. Not all repositories are able to offer good search engines or good statistical analysis. Most just provide a list of references not always relevant to the researchers' purpos-es. When one tries to organise information around a multi- or inter-disciplinary knowledge field (such as TA) the use of such repositories is highly valuable. But most platforms lack some kind of information. First of all not all are truly international: most only focus on literature in one language (e.g. English, or German, or French), or on specific countries or regions (as North American, European, Latin American, or just German, or British, and so forth). And others are too much focused on specific disciplines (as medicine, biosciences, economics, philosophy, or political sciences). With this paper we will present some needs for the organisation of such repositories to provide a not-narrowed/specialised knowledge field, and to assess one example of a repository that offers a convenient search engine and very good impact analysis. The case of repec.org provides more insights about the need to develop useful TA-related bibliographic databases and may help developing further some existing prototypes.