Utilizing multiple methodologies and techniques, institutional repositories and special collections can enhance their internal and external visibility and improve the usability and impact of their holdings. Presented at GaCOMO12 by Harold Thiele.

1. Using Institutional Repositories
and Special Collections to
Enhance Institutional Visibility
Harold Thiele, Ph.D.
COMO XXIV, Macon, GA
October 5, 2012
1

2. Environment
More and more institutions
either have established
institutional repositories or
special collections, or are
planning to establish
institutional repositories or
special collections.
2

3. Institutions
What types of institutions are
we talking about?
Academic Libraries
Government Libraries
Public Libraries
Special Libraries
3

4. Location
Most institutional repositories
and special collections
function as sub-units of
libraries or archives.
4

5. Enhance Institutional Visibility
One important goal of the
institutional repository or special
collection is to enhance the
institutional visibility.
Justify the existence of the
institutional repository or special
collection.
Attract additional support and
funding. 5

6. Audiences
Internal audience
Attract the attention and interest of
institutional members
Contribute material
– Grow the collection
Utilize materials
– Justifies the collection
Recognize the value of the collection
– Administrators & Managers
6

7. Audiences
External audience
Attract the attention and interest of
non-institutional persons
Contribute material
– Grow the collection
Utilize materials
– Justifies the collection
Recognize the value of the collection
– Funders and stakeholders
7

8. Internal Techniques
Contribute material
Institutional Mandate (1)
Materials are required to be
deposited in the institutional
repository.
Most common in corporate and
government environments.
Often restricted access.
8

9. Mesa Verde National Park
All research/scholarly materials
are deposited in the institutional
repository.
Organized using site locations
based on GPS backbone.
Over 130 years of material
deposited.
Under the museum.
9

10. Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
All research/scholarly materials
are deposited in the institutional
repository.
All senior researchers &
managers must provide detailed
exit interviews to the repository.
Under archives.
Restricted access.
10

11. Lockheed
All research/scholarly
materials are deposited in the
institutional repository.
Goes back to the 1920s.
Under the library.
Restricted access.
11

12. Internal Techniques
Contribute material
Institutional Mandate (2)
Materials are required or strongly
recommended to be deposited in the
institutional repository. Peer pressure.
Most common in academic
environments.
Open access.
12

13. Harvard DASH
Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard—
a University-wide, open-access repository.
Each faculty member grants to the
President and Fellows of Harvard College
permission to make available his or her
scholarly articles and to exercise the
copyright in those articles.
Integrated so fully into other faculty tools
that self-archiving just becomes second
nature.
Opt out system.
13

14. Harvard DASH
Market content using website, citation, and
promotion of articles and other materials added to
the repository.
Work in DASH, it becomes visible to colleagues
around the world by virtue of metadata harvesting,
Google Scholar, and other indexing services.
Higher visibility leads to higher rates of citation and
impact.
When you post early versions of your work, before
publication, you establish intellectual priority sooner.
Using social media (twitter) to promote new
additions to the repository.
14

15. DSpace@MIT
MIT's institutional repository built to
save, share, and search MIT's digital
research materials including an
increasing number of conference
papers, images, peer-reviewed
scholarly articles, preprints, technical
reports, theses, working papers, and
more.
15

16. DSpace@MIT
Success
5,000 scholarly articles that MIT Faculty have
made openly available on the web under their
Open Access Policy. Articles have been viewed
more than 380,000 times since the collection
was launched in October 2009.
Downloaded at a rate that has grown to more
than 30,000 per month, with requests from
nearly every country in the world .
16

17. DSpace@MIT
Success
DSpace@MIT content was downloaded directly
by end-users over 15.2 million times or, on
average, at a rate of over 41,000 files per day.
Contains selected digital theses and
dissertations from all MIT departments dating
as far back as the mid-1800s. Since 2004, all
new Masters and Ph.D theses have been
added to the collection after degrees have been
awarded.
17

18. DSpace@MIT
Actively promote the archives using
website, publicity, articles.
Strong community pressure (peer
pressure) to contribute to the
repository.
Grew out of paper repository.
Tradition at MIT for professors to
leave their papers to the archives.
18

19. Building Content
Survey resources to identify content
on hand.
Begin building community support for
the repository.
Clarify intellectual property issues.
Encourage deposits of content.
Security & preservation
Promotion
19

20. Building Content
Encouragement to deposit items is
not sufficient to raise self-archiving
above 15% (Harnad 2006)
Mandated deposits are required to
move beyond the slow, expensive,
time intensive piecemeal process
most institutions used.
Mandated student deposits to
mandated faculty deposits.
20

21. Building Student Content
Several institutions have focused on
building student content.
Some focus on undergraduate work
Others focus on thesis and dissertations
Requiring deposit as a condition of
graduation helps to ensure content
growth.
Provide a fixed location for the
materials.
21

22. Reference Librarians
Reference librarians are an important link
in promoting the institutional repository
and/or special collections.
Reference librarians are subject experts
and work as collection development
specialists.
They interface with the departments and
are well position to promote the IR and
open access to their departments.
22

23. Cooperative Efforts
Most smaller schools do not have the
presence that larger schools have.
By forming cooperative Institutional
Repositories schools increase the
quantity of material they are able to
present raising their visibility and
reducing costs.
23

24. Cooperative Efforts (2)
Institutions with similar interests can
create a larger Internet visibility by
forming cooperative associations.
Hosting the content on specialized
hosting sites can also reduce costs
and increase visibility.
Open Archive (National Library of
Medicine)
24

25. GKR = GALILEO Knowledge
Repository Project
Cooperative Institutional Repository
headed by Georgia Tech.
Each school has its own space and
brand.
Metadata is harvested jointly and
provided to Internet search engines.
Plan is to move hosting to Open Archive
to reduce costs and increase visibility.
25

26. The Liberal Arts Scholarly
Repository (LASR)
Openly accessible repository that documents the
scholarly and other creative activity of students
and faculty of small, selective liberal arts colleges.
Provides individual scholars and students at those
institutions the opportunity to share, explore, discover,
and evolve the ideas, experience, and inquiry
fundamental to liberal education.
LASR is the name of a collaborative group, currently
consisting of Bucknell University, Carleton College,
Grinnell College, St. Lawrence University, Trinity
University, the University of Richmond, and Whitman
College.
26

27. The Liberal Arts Scholarly
Repository (LASR)
African Digital Library Support
Network (ADLSN)
Enhancing knowledge access by
promoting and assisting the
development of low-cost digital libraries
in Africa by promoting node
development.
27

28. Significant Barriers
Copyright
Publisher permission, fear of infringing
copyright, publisher policies sow
confusion.
Age
Younger faculty more readily self archive
than older faculty. Used to using Internet
for resource location.
Time & Effort
Greater the time & effort required, the less
likely to self-archive.
28

29. Positive Influences
Accessibility
Increased communication with peers, discovery
using Internet search engines, long-term
preservation. Open access is an important
component.
Publicity
Enlarged readership, increased potential impact,
earlier dissemination of research findings. Use of
web resources and social media.
Professional Recognition
Increased visibility, increased citations. Some
studies show up to a 25% increase in citation rate.
29