Prepared by Olga Tladi, Unika Omowale, and Jordan Pedersen

1. Institutional Context
The University of the West Indies (UWI) , St. Augustine
was founded as an amalgamation of the Imperial College
of Tropical Agriculture and the University College of the
West Indies. The nucleus of the Library’s collection was
formed in 1898 and the Library has occupied two
different buildings: the Registry known now as the Old
Administration Building at the St. Augustine Campus
and the building at its present location on the JFK
quadrangle which was completed with funds provided by
the United States Government in 1969.TheAlma Jordan
Library had its early development in the Imperial College
of Tropical Agriculture. The Library has been known as
the John F. Kennedy Library, The Main Library, a four-
storey library was officially renamed The Alma Jordan
Library, after UWI Librarian Dr. Alma Jordan (1960-
1989) on February 28th 2011, is the centre of the
Campus Libraries on the St. Augustine Campus of the
UWI. The UWI St Augustine Campus Libraries include
The Alma Jordan Library (AJL), Medical Sciences
Library (MSL), School of Education Library (SOE),
Norman Girvan Library (NGL) and the Seismic Research
Unit (SRU) Library. The Campus Libraries is committed
to the continuous development of print and digital
information resources and collections, it also
concentrates on collecting and preserving unique
Caribbean content for future generations.
Botswana International
University of Science &
Technology (BIUST)
The ILNP Experience
Institutional Repository Conversations in the International
Librarian Networking Program
Olga Tladi, Unika Omowale, Jordan Pedersen
Botswana International University of Science & Technology, University of the West Indies, University of Toronto
Institutional Context
The Botswana International University of Science and
Technology lies amongst the Tswapong Hills, south-east
of Palapye in the Central District of Botswana.
Started in 2012,BIUST is committed to widening
national, regional, and international opportunities for
higher education in science, engineering, and technology,
as well as providing opportunities in applied research. As
a diverse University, BIUST’s standing as an
international Centre of higher learning and innovation is
developing through its network of partner universities
across the world. The university currently has an
enrollment of 1881 students.
BIUST Library, which is a vibrant Centre designed to
support teaching and learning by providing
information services and resources that enhance critical
thinking and research skills, is also home to
a collection of
more than 26118 volumes and various databases. In
addition to the academic coverage, it also boost a special
collection termed the “Presidential collection@BIUST”
for preserving Botswana presidential legacy.
Institutional Context
Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto (UofT) has
more than 1,000 programs of study supported by 22,000
faculty and staff, and more than 95,000 currently enrolled
students.
The University of Toronto Libraries are 44 libraries at three
campuses, and together we support learning, teaching and
research at the University of Toronto. In addition to more
than 12 million volumes in 341 languages, 1,500,000
electronic resources in various formats, 28,000 linear
metres of archival material and 500 terabytes of data, our
international network of resource sharing partnerships
extends access on our students’ and faculty members’ behalf
to materials held by thousands of other institutions.
In March 2022 we received the email that we had been
matched as networking partners, and promptly
scheduled hour-long, bi-weekly video calls for 3 months
from March – May 2022.
Some of our topics of conversation included:
• Our goals for this program
• Our career path and current job roles
• Reflection on our professional strengths and
weaknesses
• How our libraries promote our services to users
• The role of mentorship in the library profession
• The impact of COVID-19 on our library services
This poster is devoted to one of the topics we shared, which
was about our respective institutional repositories.
Definition of Institutional Repository
"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.” (Lynch 2003, 328).
University of the West
Indies (UWI), St. Augustine
University of Toronto
(UofT)
Institutional Repository
The repository was branded as UWISpace, which is powered
by DSpace technology, serves all campuses of the
UWI. UWISpace is the digital repository of the University
of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus which consists of
scholarly/research output of the academic community of the
Campus. The UWISpace collections were developed to
preserve the intellectual output of the campus and provide
digital objects that can be integrated in the teaching and
learning activities of the university community.
Some of the materials that are stored in institutional
repositories include faculty research (articles, presentations,
data sets, preprints or post prints), student theses and
dissertations, teaching materials, institutional administrative
records, conference papers and presentations.
Links
IR: https://uwispace.sta.uwi.edu/dspace/handle/123456789/8
511
Website: https://libraries.sta.uwi.edu/ajl/
Institutional Repository
The BIUST repository (BIUSTRE) is a digital collection of
the university’s intellectual output. It is an online platform
that alerts the world about the university’s research works.
These research works include research articles, conference
works, speeches/lecture series, book chapters and students’
theses and dissertations. Its intention is to manage the
university research through
capturing, preserving and selectively disseminating
the intellectual output to the global community.
BIUSTRE supports research, learning, and administrative
processes while also increases university’s visibility.
Links
IR: http://repository.biust.ac.bw/
Website: https://www.biust.ac.bw/
Library catalogue: https://biulms.biust.ac.bw/
Facebook page: Library at BIUST
Institutional Repository
UofT's repository TSpace is a free and secure
research repository established by the University
of Toronto Libraries in 2003 to disseminate and preserve
the scholarly record of the University of Toronto
community, including faculty and graduate student
research. All items in TSpace are openly accessible, either
immediately or after publisher's embargo period. It holds
articles, theses, working papers, book chapters, conference
presentations, and many other scholarly and pedagogical
materials created at U of T. Since November 2009, all
graduate students at the University of Toronto have been
required to submit their theses or dissertations to TSpace.
At the beginning of 2022, TSpace repository celebrated
a big milestone – over 100,000 items in its holdings!
These items see over 7 million downloads each year.
Links
Website: https://onesearch.library.utoronto.ca/about
IR: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/
Photo: Thomas Guignard_2016(CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
OLGA TLADI
Library Officer
Botswana International
University of Science and
Technology
Botswana
Email: tladio@biust.ac.bw
UNIKA OMOWALE
The University of the West Indies
Campus Libraries
Trinidad and Tobago
Email:
Unika.Omowale@sta.uwi.edu
JORDAN PEDERSEN
University of Toronto Libraries
Canada
Email:
jordan.pedersen@utoronto.ca