Institutional Repositories:One Road to Open Access

William J Nixon, Service DevelopmentDAEDALUS, University of Glasgow

JISC CNIRoads to Open AccessBrighton, 8th July 2004

A revolution must be wrought in the ways in which we make, store, and consult the record of accomplishment.... It is not just a problem for the libraries, although that is important. Rather, the problem is how creative men think, and what can be done to help them think. It is a problem of how the great mass of material shall be handled so that the individual can draw from it what he needs-instantly, correctly, and with utter freedom. Compact storage of desired material and swift selective access to it are the two basic elements of the problem.

Vannevar Bush,Science Is Not Enough, 1967

IR Service(s)

“a university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution.”

Clifford Lynch “Institutional Repositories”

Complementary Resource

An Institutional repository service exists, not in competition with the subject based archives, which are already

established but rather as a complementary Institutional resource.

Defining ePrints

• Electronic versions of research articles– pre-prints (pre-referred papers)– post-prints (post-refereed papers)

• May also include:– Conference papers– Book chapters

• Critical element is quality control• Beyond ePrints

– VRML, Quicktime, Databases, Images

Defining Open Access

• Open Access Journals• Open Access Institutional Repositories

Budapest Open Access Initiative

“accelerate progress in the international effort to

make research articles available on the internet.”

Open Access Momentum

Open Access in the News—– Wall Street Journal cites Open Access as one of

top 10 health stories of 2003 (30/12/03)

– Nature includes the rise of Open Access among 5 major science stories of 2003 (18/12/03)

– Science Magazine lists Open Access among 7 “breakthroughs” of 2003 (19/12/03)

– The Scientist includes Open Access among 5 major science stories of 2003 (15/12/03)

Source: Raym Crow “Half Empty”, OAI3

Defining Repositories

EPrints• Published papers• Pre-prints• Conference papers

Other content• Theses• Data• Images

Institutional repositories are digital collections that capture and preserve the intellectual output of university communities. These could include:

IRs are still in their infancy but maturing rapidly

Convergence of Drivers

• Global journal problem– Rising costs of journal prices

• Open Access movement– Budapest Open Access Initiative– Berlin Declaration

• Open Archives Initiative– OAI-PMH

• Availability of repository software– Eprints.org– Dspace et al

Some Subject Repositories

• AMS Directory of Mathematics Preprint and e-Print Servers

• ArXiv.org (formerly the Los Alamos Physics Preprint Archive, now at Cornell)

• CogPrints• RePEc (Research Papers in

Economics)

arXiv UK Mirror Screenshot

Why institutional repositories?

• A “Third Alternative” for freeing research– Papers on FTP and web sites– Subject based repositories e.g. arXiv

• Institutions provide the infrastructure to:– Build – Populate– Maintain– Preserve

• IRs are complementary and cross-searchable with OAI-compliant subject based repositories

Features

• Institutionally defined

• Contain scholarly content

• Cumulative and perpetual

• Open and interoperable - Reciprocity

Source: SPARC Position Paper: The case for institutional repositories

Benefits

• Maximise the visibility and impact of research for individual researchers

• Maximise the access to research at other institutions

• Can provide a platform for preservation

Communities and Agendas

• Faculty– Increase visibility of their own research– Increase access to others research

• Library– Challenge the serials crisis– Provide for digital preservation

• Administrators– Raise the profile of the institution– Manage University’s scholarly output

Some Cautions

• Should not used as a means of controlling scholarly output

• Infrastructure should not be distracted with policy baggage

• Should ensure that there is not a lack of institutional commitment beyond the initial implementation

Source: Clifford Lynch, “Institutional Repositories”ARL Bimonthly Report 225, February 2003

Dissemination

• ePrints and other content in repositories will be searchable via:– OAI search services e.g. OAIster – Google– Yahoo

OAIster has recently partnered with Yahoo! to provide its metadata to Yahoo! Search

Repository Software

• Open Source• Freely available• OAI Compliant• Range of software

– EPrints– DSpace– CDSware– Fedora

A Guide to Institutional Repository Softwarehttp://www.soros.org/openaccess/software/

Key Challenges

• Cultural

– Encouraging use: deposit and access

• Organisational

– Scope and Purpose

– Copyright and IPR

– Policies and legal issues

– Funding and sustainability

• Technical

– Choice of platform(s)

– Standards and formats

A Global Movement

• UK: FAIR• Netherlands: DARE• Australia: ARROW • United States:

DSpace [MIT]; Caltech CODA; California Digital Library

DAEDALUS and Glasgow

• Institutional Repository project• Funded by JISC under FAIR• Core strategic aim for Glasgow University

Library• Two strands

– Advocacy– Service Development

• EPrints and DSpace are integral components

Why EPrints and DSpace?

• Opportunity to work with them both• Hardware and skill sets available• Specific need for a publications

database which EPrints.org fulfilled• Experience with EPrints.org software• Workflow opportunities presented by

DSpace suited a more devolved model• Digital preservation dimension

Summary

• Institutional repositories provide an excellent platform to expose research and scholarly works

• As IR’s evolve they will be able to support richer content and demands

• Digital preservation is no longer an optional extra but an institutional imperative

DAEDALUS – Freeing Research at the University of Glasgow

http://www.gla.ac.uk/daedalus

DAEDALUS