science

Mir@bel

Mir@bel is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mir@bel rather than just read about it. In short: Mir@bel refers to both the collaborative database designed to gather and make the most of the information available online about trade magazines and the network of professionals (documentalists, librarians, editors) who contribute to it. Created in 2009, the knowledge base initially focused on SHS journals but has since been extended to other STM disciplines (Science, Technology, and Medicine) in line with the needs…

Key takeaways

Mir@bel belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mir@bel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mir@bel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mir@bel refers to both the collaborative database designed to gather and make the most of the information available online about trade magazines and the network of professionals (documentalists, librarians, editors) who contribute to it. Created in 2009, the knowledge base initially focused on SHS journals but has since been extended to other STM disciplines (Science, Technology, and Medicine) in line with the needs and investments of network members. Interconnections with various journal portals, library tools and information systems such as Sherpa Romeo have multiplied since its creation.

History Mir@bel - for "Mutualisation d'Informations sur les Revues et leurs Accès dans les Bases En Ligne" - was founded in 2009 on the initiative of three establishments: Sciences Po Lyon, Sciences Po Grenoble and ENS de Lyon, the project having emerged within their libraries. In 2016, the Dijon School of Humanities (MSH Dijon, CNRS / uB) and the École nationale des travaux publics de l'État (ENTPE) joined the network's pilot institutions, replacing the Diderot Library of ENS Lyon. The Mir@bel prototype was presented at a "Workshop on sharing systems for reporting journal content in the humanities and social sciences" on 27 November 2008 in Lyon. A second version (with a new interface and new functions) was introduced in 2012. In March 2017, the network announced the release of its content under an open licence, and then, in April 2020, the application's source code was released under the Affero GPL licence and placed on GitLab. In 2020, under the guidance of the Committee for Open Science, Mir@bel formed a partnership with the Jisc team that developed the Sherpa Romeo database. A working group has been set up for this purpose, led by Bernard Teissier. In February 2022, a service for declaring publication policies was launched, for French scientific journals, led by a moderation group within the Mir@bel network. In 2020 and 2023, the Mir@bel network has twice won the call for projects from the French National Open Science Fund (FNSO), under the coordination of Sophie Fotiadi.

Content The Mir@bel database, dedicated to scientific journals in the humanities and social sciences (SHS) for a long time, has gradually been enriched with publications from other disciplines in the sciences, technology and medicine (STM), as well as professional journals, magazines and newspapers. This database's thematic coverage is intrinsically linked to the needs and investments of the network members who contribute to it. For example, the libraries of political science establishments have used it to provide online access to journals in this discipline, as have the librarians of the architecture school network and the members of the Frantiq network for journals in archaeology and the ancient sciences. The journals listed here are mainly English- or French-language, but also Spanish- or German-language, and two-thirds are bilingual. And they are both active publications and those that have ceased publication. The database created in 2009 began by indicating where to find the full text of articles, issue summaries, article abstracts and bibliographic references online for each journal. It has evolved to include a number of additional bounce-backs providing access to a journal's entire online environment. Thanks to automated updates from several distribution platforms (referred to as resources in Mir@bel) such as Cairn. info, Érudit, OpenEdition, Persée, and publishers' platforms or journal incubators federated within the Repères network, as well as individual monitoring work by network members and strengthened partnerships with the Agence Bibliographique de l'Enseignement Supérieur (ABES) and the Centre ISSN France, the Mir@bel network plays a role in the quality of journal metadata at the source. Since 2022, more than a hundred publishers (publishing houses, learned societies, laboratories with publishing activities, etc.) have benefited from the Mir@bel publication policy declaration service. In 2024, more than 20,000 journals were reported, including 6,000 updated daily.

Organisation and operation The Mir@bel network does not have its own legal structure. In 2024, it will be steered by 4 institutions: Sciences Po Lyon, Sciences Po Grenoble, MSH Dijon and ENTPE, which will be responsible for setting the direction and an annual roadmap, in conjunction with an "operational steering committee" open to partner members who wish to get involved. Two types of partnerships can be entered into to participate in the network:

A partnership agreement is signed between the member institutions, with Sciences Po Lyon acting on behalf of the other pilot institutions; A more flexible partnership for publishers in the form of a letter of commitment. The database is fed in 3 ways by:

monitoring partners within institutions that have signed an agreement, mainly represented by university libraries or other documentation services; publishing partners representing public and private publishing houses, as well as a number of laboratories that have developed a publishing activity; resource partners, essentially distribution platforms with which updates have been automated. The network's operations and database are based on the sharing and pooling of information from journals.Several dozen French-language libraries and institutions use it and check its content. The interface has been developed by SILECS, an IT services company specialising in open source solutions. The knowledge base was funded from the outset by the Rhône-Alpes Region, and over the last few years has received new funding from prize-winning projects and institutional financial support.

Examples of applications and interconnections

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mir@bel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mir@bel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mir@bel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mir@bel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mir@bel

In research: Mir@bel appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mir@bel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mir@bel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mir@bel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mir@bel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mir@bel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mir@bel out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mir@bel in simple terms?

Why does Mir@bel matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mir@bel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mir@bel.