The Creation of Internet Communities: A Brief History of On-Line Distribution of Working Papers Through NEP, 1998-2010

Abstract

This paper adds to the growing literature on the formation of online communities from an historical perspective [1-3] by telling of the emergence and development of a service for speedy, online distribution of recent additions to the broad literatures on economics and related areas called NEP: New Economics Papers as well as the online community that grew around it. We provide details of the social and technological challenges for its construction as well as the evolution of its governance. The development of NEP provides an illustrative example for the kind of new business models that have emerged as the Internet has been used by creative minds to provide existing services in a new way.

Keywords: digital libraries, online communities, open source, New Economic Papers (NEP), RePEc

JEL Classification: N8, A31, L63