Institutional Repositories: An Overview

1. Institutional Repositories: An Overview David Seaman Executive Director, Digital Library Federation JISC Programme Meeting 7 July 2004, Brighton

2. Digital Library Federationhttp://www.diglib.org/ • Thirty-three members – major academic and national libraries, including The British Library; four allies (CNI; RLG; OCLC; LANL) • Created in 1995 by directors of US research libraries; fills a need not simply met by larger library organizations: focus exclusively on DL needs and strategies for large libraries • Be nimble, agile, collaborative • Practical and strategic areas of activity

3. DLF Work -- background USER SERVICES • Dimensions and use of the scholarly information environment www.diglib.org/pubs/scholinfo • Learning technologies and courseware integration • Distributed single collection of our own material METADATA STANDARDS • Open Archives Initiative support (with CNI) • METS (Metadata Transmission Standard)

4. DLF Work -- background RESOURCE MANAGEMENT • XML format for license content • Registry of Digital Masters (with OCLC) PRODUCTION • Production standards and benchmarks PRESERVATION • Journals preservation – www.diglib.org/preserve/ejp.htm • Global Digital Format Registry

5. Definition from The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper • “They capture and preserve the intellectual output of university communities… [and] provide a central component in reforming scholarly communication by stimulating innovation in a disaggregated publishing structure.” • “They serve as tangible indicators of an institution’s quality, thus increasing its visibility, prestige, and public value.”

6. Potential Contents Articles, reprints, technical reports, working papers, conference papers, dissertations and theses, datasets, image files, audio and video files, e-books, courseware output, learning objects, faculty archives, departmental archives Both raw and cooked – finished articles and the datasets built as part of the research that leads to the article’s conclusions

7. Driving forces • Libraries ambitious to extend their traditional roles and skills into new realm • University administrations • Realization of what we can do now that we could not do “pre-digital” • Vision of the intellectual and pedagogical potential of open access • Exploitation of intellectual assets (academic capitalism)

8. Contributing streams of endeavor • Public access (Sabo Bill; Wellcome Trust) • Metadata harvesting -- OAI • Experience with digital library collections • Individual faculty digital archives • Digital preservation and curation • Emulation, conversion, migration roles • Cheaper storage • Permanent identifier schemes

9. Main Players #1 • DSpace (MIT) [http://www.dspace.org] • Eprints (Southampton) [http://software.eprints.org]. • Berkeley Electronic Press [http://www.bepress.com] -- University of California's eScholarship Repository [http://repositories.cdlib.org] • Fedora (Cornell/Virginia) [http://www.fedora.info/ ]

10. Main Players #2 • CURL/JISC Project SHERPA (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) [http://www.sherpa.ac.uk] • The Academic Research in the Netherlands Online (ARNO) • Local systems : Ohio State University (OSU) Knowledge Bank [http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/Kbinfo]

11. Digital Commons (BePress/ProQuest) • “Libraries that use Digital Commons will be able to offer key services such as full-text searching, export to XML, full support for OAI, and personalized email notification for new updates.” • “ProQuest can provide a head start on content by immediately loading all of an academic library’s dissertation content – creating an immediate critical mass.” • “University of Pennsylvania and University of New Brunswick are early adopters.”

12. DSPACE • “DSpace is a groundbreaking digital repository for the digital intellectual output of a university. It is designed to capture, store, index, preserve, and redistribute research material….” DSpace Elevator Pitch • Open source; HP/MIT Libraries collaboration • Community/department model • Separates bit storage from usability at its core

13. Recent Developments • “Google Teams Up With 17 Colleges to Test Searches of Scholarly Materials.” (DSpace) • http://chronicle.com/free/2004/04/2004040901n.htm • BePress/ProQuest commercial package • Elsevier’s open access promise specifically permits institutional repository deposit (and puts the ball firmly in our court.)

14. Technical Challenges • Many formats – migration/emulation and documentation needs • Little metadata beyond that provided by the submitter • Bulk • Access control to non-public content • Costly promise of permanence • Interoperability

15. Cultural issues • Current practice of putting material on personal websites does not mean the same as adding your material to a system that declares it to be an “asset” for exploitation • Ownership issues • The curse of over-promising • Last Year’s Thing/Not Ready for Prime Time • The roadblock we don’t see (assumptions)

16. Cultural issues • “The greatest obstacle to any change in the fundamental structure of scholarly communication lies in the inertia of the traditional publishing paradigm. And nowhere is that inertia more profound—and understandable, given the professional stakes—than amongst academic faculty.” Rick Johnson, SPARC

17. Cultural issues • Current academic measurement and rewards system not in sync with open access, especially for “uncooked” material. • Disparity of perceived need by discipline • Institutional repositories not driven by broad groundswell of faculty demand • Faculty often not used to being “asset producers” for anyone but themselves

18. Conclusions • Great appetite and growing momentum from libraries and administrators to assume the burden and reap the benefits of institutional repositories • Uneven demand and comfort level from faculty • Critical need to engage now in the cultural issues and move implications of the repository into promotion, hiring, and evaluation.