Established in 2003, E-LIS is an international Open Archive for Library and Information Science (LIS). Over 11,500 papers have been archived to date. It is freely accessible, aligned with the Open Access (OA) movement and is a voluntary enterprise. E-LIS has grown to include a team of volunteer editors from 44 countries and support for 22 languages. The development of an international LIS network has been stimulated by the extension of the OA concept to LIS works and facilitated by the dissemination of material within the LIS community. These are some of the reasons for the success of E-LIS.

In a few years, E-LIS has been established as the largest international open repository in the field of library and information science. Searching or browsing E-LIS is a kind of multilingual, multicultural experience, an example of what could be accomplished through open access archives to bring the people of the world together. Because librarians are so involved in open access advocacy, E-LIS is a key to encouraging open access for all repositories, by giving librarians the experience they need to speak with confidence when talking with researchers and open access archives, and the experience to provide the best possible assistance to self-archiving faculty.

E-LIS repository is currently supported by a broader number of institutions like:
1 CILEA through the AePIC team which is managed by Susanna Mornati and supports E-LIS at technical level since January 2003
2 FAO of the United Nations through the FAO AIMS team which is managed by Johannes Keizer and supports E-LIS since 2010 
3 DURASPACE that supports E-LIS since 2011.