This article focuses on the publishing paradigm of the University of California (UC). As digital technologies evolved and campus budgets constricted, UC librarians, researchers and administrators began acknowledging three challenges that could not be ignored; the economics of publishing were changing rapidly, scholarly communication needed to innovate and sustaining comprehensive collections was becoming increasingly harder to do. UC representatives began conceptualizing a plan to harness the system's resources at a time when the budget was very bad and the possibilities of technology seamed endless. The mission of the California Digital Library is to provide a centralized framework to efficiently share materials held by UC, offer greater and easier access to digital content and join with researchers in developing new tools and innovations for scholarly communication. The eScholarship Repository, a project of the eScholarship initiative project, offers faculty a central location for depositing any research or scholarly output deemed appropriate by their participating UC research unit. The repository enables the rapid creation, management and dissemination of journals, peer-reviewed series, working papers and other forms of scholarship generated by UC researchers.