Author Affiliation and Preprint Publication on the SSRN Literature Research Network

With the increasing embrace of preprints by scientific and social science disciplines, the humanities have garnered comparatively less attention in their development. This study targeted 1,734 preprints uploaded on the SSRN Literature Research Network between 1997 and 2020. The findings reveal substantial preprint growth in both traditional and interdisciplinary literature categories since 2007. A total of 1,376 authors were identified as affiliated with 676 institutions across 75 countries and represented 25 disciplines. Only 6 authors shared preprints in both interdisciplinary and traditional literature, but they were productive, contributing 8-100 preprints. Law authors dominated interdisciplinary literature preprints because most preprints were related to law and literature. This differed in that language and literature authors predominantly shared preprints in traditional literature. Additionally, there is a slightly higher publication rate in interdisciplinary literature preprints than in traditional literature preprints (36.6% vs. 31.8%). Traditional literature preprints showed a significantly higher preference for publishing in the format of journal articles compared to interdisciplinary literature preprints (88.7% vs. 77.3%).