From Open Archive to Multifaceted Platform: Reconciling the Diverse Stakeholders Needs in HAL

HAL, launched in 2001 as a multidisciplinary open archive, has evolved into the national repository infrastructure for the French research community. With over 1.4 million files, including articles, preprints, and conference papers, HAL has experienced significant growth since 2019, with annual deposits exceeding 150,000 files. The platform provides long-term preservation and services for researchers and institutions, balancing their diverse needs. This presentation examines four key factors driving HAL's evolution, highlighting its dual role as a technical system and a collaborative network. First, HAL has expanded its metadata capabilities beyond traditional bibliographic information, enabling research monitoring and integration with diverse information systems. Second, it has streamlined researcher tools, offering automated self-archiving and metadata extraction from deposited files to reduce workloads and increase adoption. Third, HAL's federation model allows institutions to create customizable portals, fostering collaboration and contributing to a unified national research network. Finally, comprehensive user support, including training and dedicated assistance, strengthens the repository's overall usability. While these innovations advance open science, they also raise challenges, such as managing increasing complexity, balancing simplicity with feature expansion, and ensuring HAL maintains its primary focus on open dissemination rather administrative data management.