Persuasive Arguments for Establishing an Institutional Repository James M. Donovan Faculty and Access Services Librarian University of Georgia Law School Carol A. Watson Associate Director for Information Technology

Introduction An institutional repository is a means to collect the intellectual digital output of an organization Primary goals of the IR: Collect organization’s output into one virtual location Includes a variety of formats Provides open access to materials Increases an institution’s visibility on the Internet Both UGA and Univ. of Maryland chose bepress’ Digital Commons. Open source – free lunch or free puppy? We focus 100% on content acquisition Statistics: 1,048 papers to date 96,199 full-text downloads to date 46,320 downloads in the past year This presentation is based upon our personal experiences. Terminology --- DC = IR = institutional repository (used interchangeably). Major topics to be discussed: Making the decision to implement an IR. Creating a business plan to persuade law school administrators. Obtaining content Copyright Expanding the IR Sharing an IT with another institution A logical extension of our traditional processes that acquire information, that organize and make it available, and that preserve it

The Business Plan: SSRN v The Business Plan: SSRN v. Digital Commons Does the Law School need both? James M. Donovan

Open Access?

Which KIND of Open Access? SSRN v. Digital Commons

Factors to Consider Level of Promotion—SSRN favors individual, while Digital Commons prioritizes the institution Depth of Content—SSRN contains only text documents; Digital Commons allows a variety of file formats to be included Search Engine Visibility

SSRN Download Stats as of April 7, 2009 DC/SW Stats White Paper Stats as of Jan 14, 2008

In both cases bepress downloads represent the majority The percentage of each appears to be stable, suggesting the differences are systemic

What About My SSRN Statistics? The concern: That IR documents will bleed download statistics away from SSRN, making my work appear unpopular. Wouldn’t those readers just use the SSRN copy instead?

Depends on How Users Search in Google: If searching for a known document by TITLE, probably, yes…..

Depends on How Users Search in Google: Search = cultural defense But if searching by key word, most likely not….. IR version on page 14 of results; SSRN not in first 25 pages

Depends on How Users Search in Google: Search = limits culture defense IR version third on page 1 of results; SSRN not in first 25 pages

What About My SSRN Statistics? Working hypothesis: IR may decrease SSRN statistics when users search in Google by title (the rare case); Those doing key word searching are far more likely to find only the IR document, so represent an absolute increase in readers, not displaced SSRN downloads

Our Conclusion: SSRN and Digital Commons are not redundant; each serves a different population of readers— SSRN targets immediate readers in the law community, Digital Commons/ Selected Works pushes longterm consumption by readers at large. Maximal distribution of scholarship requires both mechanisms. The dual expense is justified. However, as the advantages of SSRN can be obtained without a fee – individual uploads and inclusion in subject matter journals – if only one can be pursued, the institutional repository renders the greater return.

Obtaining Content and Building Buy-in Carol A. Watson

Obtaining Content Building Buy-in Develop a Strategy to Promote Awareness of the Repository We populated each category with one representative document & included at least one document from each faculty. THEN…we held a wine and cheese reception. Faculty will have a range of interest in the IR. 1. Some – little interest. Need to persuade to contribute anything at all 2. Others - one stop shop for all their output. Need to accommodate requests to include less desirable items (letters to the editor, tweets, etc). Well-planned IR content management requires 2 tactics: 1. techniques to solicit desirable items from contributors 2. policies and organization to control the intake of non-scholarly content. First, let’s discuss techniques to solicit desirable items from contributors. Well-rounded IR includes archives. However, priority should be given to cultivating a steady stream of new contributions To meet this challenge, the IR Manager must establish positive relations with the scholars. We populated each category with one representative document and made sure to obtain at least one document from every faculty member. THEN…we held a wine and cheese reception.

Obtaining Content Building Buy-in Ease of submission is critical Direct submission Useful in an environment with a large contributor base Eliminates the need for contact with human intermediaries Mediated submission Better service Control over content Faculty are often unaware of copyright Theories of content acquisition: 1. If you build it, they will come. Can try to make it seem fun, like Tom Sawyer’s fence painting 2. Mandate, which some schools have done. Harvard 2007 example. 3. Provide service and mediate acquisition of content. DC allows direct submission by contributors, with later opportunity for editing/approval by a designated series editor. In libraries with many contributors, can encourage submissions by eliminating the need for human contact. UGA does not use the direct submission option. For our smaller community, can provide better service and maintain tighter control, if we personally solicit faculty. We designate a series editor within the library for each series. Another reason: direct submission includes a screen asking faculty to verify they hold the copyright permissions. in our experience, faculty are surprisingly unaware of the details of the publication agreements they have signed. This experience is not just unique to the University of Georgia. See sample statements of Cornell faculty members who were unsure about copyright permissions in Phillip M. Davis and Matthew J.L. Connolly, Institutional Repositories: Evaluating the Reasons for Non-use of Cornell University’s Installation of DSpace, available at 13 D-Lib Magazine 1 at 14 (2007). Cornell conducted in-depth interviews with 11 faculty members from diverse disciplines and noted most of them were confused about copyright (not all of them cared, some were overly cautious). To avoid ethical and legal complications later, we have found it prudent to delay upload until copyright permissions have been verified. We control the quality of the content. No poor scans, large files, non-ocr files.

Obtaining Content Building Buy-in Feedback and publicity promotes participation Monthly email report on downloads Link to full text in faculty bibliographies Tell a Colleague Paper of the Day At a Glance – top 10 downloads Valuable feature of Digital Commons - monthly email re: statistics Fosters a sense of the value of the IR. Monthly report includes - downloads for the past month. Downloads since the date of posting Get their attention by: Linking to full text in online faculty bibliographies Mention to faculty that full text searching is available Tell a colleague on each item page – sends email Bookmark – includes icons for every type of service you can imagine…facebook, myspace, twitter, linked in, then some unusual ones: Backflip, Mr. Wong, Link-aGOGO On the main page, can also sign up for bealerts – emails that track newly published content, tailored to your interests or RSS feeds for the entire site. Also excited by Paper of the Day and top 10 downloads

Obtaining Content Building buy-in Improved placement in Google search results Long term preservation of documents with stable URLs Studies have shown online availability increases readership Steve Lawrence, “Online or Invisible,” 411 Nature 521 (2001) James A. Evans and Jacob Reimer, “Open Access and Global Participation in Science,” 323 Science 1025 (2009) Improved placement in Google search results James discussed Always catches their attention No broken URLS and your work is BACKED UP It should be noted that free online availability maximizes a publication’s impact. PRINT IS WHERE INFORMATION GOES TO DIE!! Raging debate: Some studies have shown that online access to scholarship increases readership. One study – 200% increase in According to Steve Lawrence’s article “Online or Invisible?”, articles freely available online are more highly cited. Second article suggests that the citation is more modest than originally proposed (100%)

Establish Clear Content Policies 3 strategies: Create distinct categories. For example, popular media vs. scholarly works Upload documents as supplements to a main record. Encourage faculty members to set up Select Works pages Not as dire as People or the Enquirer, but it is extremely difficult to reject content once it has been submitted. For example, nonacademic, nonlegal or publications of limited reputation Remember the repository is your institution’s intellectual face to the world Clear content policies should be set by highest appropriate authority…in our case the Associate Dean for Faculty Development 3 solutions to get out of a sticky situation 1. Material of limited interest should not overwhelm the true gems of the collection. Create a new category. For example, in order to preserve the impact of the traditional scholarly pieces, we load newspaper and casual magazine articles into popular media. 2. Upload unlimited supplemental documents to a main record. Aggregates materials that would, if entered separately, swamp the content the organization wishes to promote. Perhaps a record for letters to the editor. Then attach all as items. 3. Selected Works - allows faculty members who prefer to maintain exclusive control of the dissemination of their scholarly works. Author can self-administer (although third-party editors can be assigned by the page owner). User-friendly - faculty can organize it according to personal criteria. Faculty can promote themselves and manage their identities. The IR Manager can take advantage of the connectedness of all affiliated SW pages to the institution’s DC repository to directly import documents posted on one into the other. By allying the DC with SW, the faculty’s desire for control can be fulfilled while yet providing the IR administrator with a reliable source of appropriate content for the repository.

Copyright: Obtaining and Tracking Permissions James M. Donovan

Copyright Procedures: 1: Assume permission from your own authors 2: Construct spreadsheet of existing publications 3: Batch requests for contacting each journal to ask permission to upload identified articles both to Digital Commons and the author’s own webpage (e.g., Selected Works) 4: For newer works, encourage authors to include these rights in any future publication agreements

When All Else Fails: 1: Don’t overlook the obvious look at the publisher’s website to see what permissions are included look at any documentation the author may have saved 2: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php http://www.oaklist.qut.edu.au/ SHERPA/RoMEO and OAKList give publisher’s standard agreements concerning self-archiving. Few law journals currently included

Decision Chart for Copyright Permissions

Tracking Permissions 1: Paper files unwieldy 2: Attach permission to each article as undisplayed supplemental material 3: Create an “Institutional Repository” Community to include global permission grants

Expanding the repository Carol A. Watson

Expanding the IR Liaise with other administrative depts 16th Annual Report of the Secretaries of State: Bipartisan Advice to the Next Administration We liaise with other law school departments to collect scholarly presentations/colloquia as well as p.r. materials. Raises the library visibility with other internal departments. 2008 - Dean Rusk Center at UGA’s School of Law and the Southern Center for International Studies. Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell A sold-out crowd of more than 2,100 to the Classic Center.

Create rich and well-rounded archival records (with abstracts): Main document – transcript of speech P.R. department arranged to video the speech. We had it converted to digital format and added to our Digital Commons. Also collected the press releases News articles Photos of the event Working closely in this manner with the public relations officers forged a new respect for the library’s leadership, inspiring them to subscribe to DC’s RSS feed of new additions to the collection so that the office could immediately utilize the links in their press releases.

Expanding the IR Content we’re expanding our IR to include: Books – table of contents, book jacket blurb, preface/intro Portrait Gallery Embedding streaming video Graduation Programs Photos of Events Law school handbooks, course catalogs and schedules Blogs? We’re very careful to make full complete records. Try to include an abstract for everything

Consider a Shared Environment Regional organizations, consortia and partnerships can take similar advantage of the benefits of IRs Example: eScholarship @ Boston College HELIN Library Consortium – 10 academic libraries in Rhode Island & Massachusetts, improved dissemination and visibility of the consortia’s scholarly materials

Sharing an IR Advantages of sharing an IR Increased buying power Share tech support, experience & expertise Populate the IR more quickly Disadvantage of sharing an IR Loss of individual scholar’s primary institutional identity Cost reduction – ability to negotiate with greater power Intangibles – experience, expertise Quickly populating the IR – INCREASES BUY-IN If a consortium: Smaller institutions can leverage their collective presence Scholars can be easily apprised of the latest scholarship at peer institutions Main disadvantage - loss of individual scholar’s primary institutional identity.

Conclusion The goals of an IR are: to collect an institution or organization’s intellectual output, including gray literature to provide open access to repository materials to increase the visibility of the repository’s institution or organization Promoting the benefits of an IR is critical for a successful implementation.

Conclusion “Whether enhancing the scholarly reputation of an institution, serving as a historical archive of its achievements, or forging new relationships with peer institutions, the IR can become central to the organization’s mission to bring the world to its halls and to communicate its contributions.”

James M. Donovan & Carol A. Watson, University of Georgia Law Library For further reading: White Paper: Behind a Law School’s Decision to Implement an Institutional Repository James M. Donovan & Carol A. Watson, University of Georgia Law Library http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/ir/1/