HOW TO: MLA CORE

Main Link: https://mla.hcommons.org/core/

About

Standing for Commons Open Repository Exchange, CORE was created in 2015 by the Modern Language Association (MLA) and Columbia University Libraries/ Information Services’ Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. CORE is “a digital repository for MLA members to share and archive all forms of scholarly communication.” In other words, with this openly accessible storage site, scholars are able to easily share and get feedback on their work from others.

Types of works featured on MLA CORE:

• Peer-reviewed journal articles
• Dissertations and theses
• Conference papers
• Syllabi
• Data Sets
• Abstracts
• Presentations
• Translations
• Book reviews
• Maps
• Charts
• Much more!

On this site, the submitter remains the owner of any work they may deposit and share.

Fun Fact: this online project was a awarded a $60,000 start-up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2014.

“Knowledge of recent work in the humanities often spreads at a snail’s pace. By giving our members a way to instantly share their syllabi, conference papers, blog posts, and research, we hope to eliminate some of the barriers to collaboration and discoverability in the humanities and foster the work of our community” — Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Scholarly Communication of MLA

How to Register

For me, the easiest way to make an account was through Humanities Commons. When you get to the home page, look toward the upper-right corner and click on the “Register” icon. It should take you to this page. Click “Register Now” and follow the instructions to make a free account.

After making an account and signing in, look toward the side bar on the Humanities Commons webpage and click “CORE Repository.” Then, you should see two options: “Upload York Work” and “Find Open Access Materials.”

Uploading Materials

When you click on the “Upload Your Work” button in the image above, it takes you to a form that asks for the file you wish to upload, whether or not it has been previously published, its title, item type, description, and more. You can also add any tags to it to expand its reach.

Click on the “Deposit” button at the end and that’s it! You’re done! Easy.

Finding and Exploring Materials

By clicking on the “Find Open Access Materials” button, you are taken to a search page with all of CORE’s deposits. You can browse by subject, item type, or date. You can also use the search bar.

For practice, I typed “Digital History” in the search bar and came across 58 items. With these results, I could download Julian C. Chambliss’s Reframing Digital Humanities: Conversations with Digital Humanists for free or read the 2020 Annual Report for The Lab of Education and Advancement in Digital Research.

Creating Community

On the side bar, you can click on “Members” and “Groups” to get involved with the CORE community. On the “Member” page, you can follow your favorite scholars or contributors to the website.

On the “Groups” page, you can either join an already existing group or create your own. For example, there is a public group dedicated to literary theory, in which members can discuss and collaborate on projects pertaining to literary criticism, the history of literary theory and more. There are tons of other groups like this for a variety of other topics.

Overall, MLA CORE is an interesting and helpful resource that allows scholars to share their work and connect with others in their field.

Let me know if you have any questions! — Rachael Davis