Institutional Repositories: Defining Local Needs

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Institutional RepositoriesDefining Local Needs
Developing Local Implementation Strategies

• Susan Gibbons
• Digital Initiatives Librarian
• University of Rochester
• sgibbons_at_library.rochester.edu

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Impetus for Repository- Fall 2000

• Provost
• Crisis in Scholarly Publishing
• Students want ETDs (electronic theses and
  dissertations)
• Facultys growing interest in pre-print archives
  and electronic publishing

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Defining Local Requirements

• Examine what others are doing
• Academic peers
• Similar physical orientation
• Similar organizational structure
• Similar research and curriculum

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Defining Local Requirements

• Discover unique, local requirements though pilot
  projects- Spring 2001
• Used ePrints, open-source software
• 2 pilot projects- ETDs and faculty repository
• Recruited content from faculty and students
• Participation in IT committees roundtables
• Professors homepages
• Sympathetic disciplines
• Collaboration with IT division

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FYI- the dandelion is the official flower of the
University of Rochester
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Defining Local Requirements

• What we discovered
• Lots of policy issues
• Access issues
• Preservation issues
• Monitoring of collection- quality and maintenance
• Music Medical schools present very different
  challenges

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Buy vs. Build

• Buy-
• Pros- less reliance on in-house staff someone to
  call (and blame) when it breaks
• Cons- hard to find perfect match can be
  difficult to customize future development in the
  hands of others
• Build-
• Pros- tailored to your unique environment
  prestige from significant contribution
  self-reliance
• Cons- significant in-house staff required to
  design, build and maintain required expertise in
  numerous fields (preservation, metadata,
  usability, etc.)

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Middle Ground

• Development partnership
• Pros- make significant impact on design of
  product develop local expertise
• Cons- requires significant investment of time and
  staffing potentially a long, frustrating process

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Finding Repository System

• Drafted list of desired and required
  specifications
• Compared against features of available systems-
  Fall 2001
• Digital object management systems by ILS vendors
• Electronic Publishing Systems
• Open-source Systems

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Finding Repository System

• Electronic Publishing Systems (BePress)
• Great for formal e-publishing
• Digital Object Management Systems (ENCompass,
  DigiTool)
• Librarian is gatekeeper
• Open-Source Systems (ePrints, Greenstone, DSpace)
• Institutional, rather than collection, focus of
  DSpace

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Potential Projects

• Identity for Institutes and Studies
• Repository for faculty collections
• Archive for on-campus publications
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations
• Perhaps create modules for
• Student ePortfolios
• ePublishing System