An institutional repository is defined as an online archive for collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital copies of the intellectual output of an institution. It aims to provide open access, long-term preservation, and promotion of scholarship. Early repositories focused on specific subjects like science, but now institutions house a variety of material like faculty research, student work, data sets, and more to increase visibility and collaboration both on and off campus. While concerns exist around costs and policies, repositories provide benefits like increased citations and sharing of knowledge if properly supported and promoted to the academic community.

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2. • Definition by MIT Libraries, who created DSPACE – one of the first and still most‐used
software applications for institutional repositories.
• This definition focuses primarily on the archiving and preservation aspects.
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3. • Clifford Lynch, head of Coalition for Networked Information, highlights the service
component.
• He adds: “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.”
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4. • In a 2002 paper titled The Case for Institutional Repositories, Crow created what has
become the standard definition
• SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition adopted this , and
has since widened it to highlight elements such as free access and interoperability
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5. • arXiv, started at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and now housed at
Cornell, is generally considered to be the first academic institutional repository
• Other notable early repositories include the arXiv extension Cogprints, the Networked
Computer Science Technical Reports Library, several NASA databases, and RePec, a
consortial economics repository.
• Each of these was centralized rather than local to an institution, and all of these, and
most other early repositories were subject‐specific – and generally science‐related
• (all of these still exist, and have expanded beyond their initial institutional boundaries)
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6. • Notable current examples include:
• Early adopter’s MIT and University of California
• University of Wisconsin’s Deep Blue
• University of Wisconsin’s Minds at UW
• Rochester Institute of Technology’s Digital Media Library
• Georgia Tech’s Smart Tech
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7. • For early repositories, software was often developed. Some examples of this and newer
applications include:
• D‐Space: created by MIT
• Fedora: created at Cornell (these two merged to form Duraspace)
• ePrints: University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science, England
• Refbase: University of Kiel in Germany
• BRICKS: “Building Resources for Integrated Cultural Knowledge Services,” created by
consortia of European schools and businesses
• Greenstone: University of Waikato, NZ
• Invenio: European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
• Omeka: created by George Mason University
• Content dm: created at U Washington, now owned by OCLC
• Digital Commons: created and run by Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress)
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8. • Avenue of promotion and increased visibility
• The repository itself and the work within it demonstrate a commitment to scholarly
work
• Allows for collaboration across departments, campuses, and with the wider community
• Avenue to support research by faculty and students, and encourage local investment
and engagement
• Don’t have to pay for their own articles. Potentially, future savings due to decrease of
fee‐based journals
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9. • The “Open Access Citation Advantage” has been verified
• A 2011 study comparing articles published in both formats within one journal found
nearly 40% higher citation rates for OA
• A 2010 survey conducted in various disciplines found that 87% reported higher citation
rates for articles published in Open Access
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10. • Avenue of promotion and increased visibility
• Eliminate gap between submission and publication, as well as common online embargos
• Generally, authors retain rights and full access, and are free to republish elsewhere
• Multiple mediums can be submitted, as well as multiple document types – including raw
data
• Allow for collaboration across departments, campuses, and with the wider community
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11. • Community, meaning both on‐campus and beyond:
• Community members are able to see what each other are doing
• This increases the speed of research. Richard Johnson, former executive director of
SPARC stated:
“The ability to locate and retrieve more relevant research more quickly and easily online
will improve scholarly communication and advance scholarly research”
• This also allows for collaboration, most notably across disciplines and between
unexpected partners
• And they provide access by the wider community
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12. • Many, including the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition and the New
York State Higher Education Initiative, are lobbying for open access to research done at
public institutions
• The “taxpayer access to publically funded research act” (TAPFR) is currently
active in the New York State Legislature
• There are federal models for this: the federal research public access act, Obama’s
Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, and others
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13. • The SUNY system does have a repository, which has existed since 2005
• It currently houses 19 University at Albany items, all of which were posted by two
faculty members in the same department
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14. • There is often a fear of cost, both financial and relating to time required for creation of
an IR
• This extends to maintenance concerns, which also include financial and time
expenditures
• Current policies do not easily fit with the idea of an IR, and there are few well‐known
examples
• Most institutions are unaware of either the need or value of IRs
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15. • Most academic researchers feel they have no time to spare on formatting and
submitting articles
• Open Access journals don’t meet most institutions’ tenure requirements, causing fearful
associations that extend to IRs
• Some view IRs as non‐scholarly areas that lessen the esteem of their work
• Some fear the technical elements involved, ranging from digitization and formatting,
creating metadata, submitting, and future access
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16. • Benefits should be explained in detail, first to administration and then to the wider
community
• Institutions should develop policy alongside a new repository, so the two complement
each other
• Following SPARC’s idea of institutional definition, an IR should be designed around local
needs and collections
• Partner with invested members, such as campus centers for research, copyright centers
and Interlibrary loan offices
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17. • Many are unaware of the benefits of repositories (and open access) – educate them!
This includes explaining the citation advantage, and the fact that IRs offer
opportunities for advanced citation indexing.
• Further, for teaching faculty IRs provide spaces to share teaching materials in a
greatly expanded way
• Explain that there will be no loss of rights, and that submission is optional
• Differentiate between submission types such as preprints and peer‐reviewed articles
• Scan and upload articles for faculty – self‐submission is the most‐cited obstacle to the
success of IRs
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18. • Promote the IR, before, during, and after its implementation
• Add student papers, theses and dissertations
• Reach out to local journals (including student newspapers, departmental newsletters,
etc.)
• Fold in already existing local collections
• Use as an opportunity to foster collaboration and sharing, both on campus and beyond
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