The Institutional Repository Toolbox How to successfully implement an institutional repository Ninth Southern African Online Information Meeting 3 – 5 June 2008 Presented by ina.smith@up.ac.za More and more South African institutions are starting to implement digital repositories. These repositories are used to collect, disseminate, manage, preserve, and index their digitally born and non-digitally born assets. Currently there are 11 South African repositories listed on the Registry of Open Access Repositories and openDOAR. A digital repository offers many advantages. In addition to preserving intellectual output in digital format for years to come, it can also help improve the visibility, usage and impact of research conducted at your institution on the world out there.  

Tools for setting up an Institutional Repository Setting up a digital repository can be challenging. Although there are many resources available on the web and elsewhere, people often do not have the time and other resources to study and research the vast amount of information available out there. The solution we came up with was to design an institutional repository toolbox, which contains the most important tools needed to implement a repository within a South African institution. This toolbox has been populated with document templates, document examples and links to other useful information – from business plans to policies on copyright, preservation, digitization and more. What I would like to do this morning is to quickly share with you a couple of important tools needed to successfully set up a digital repository at your institution.

Strategize What helped and guided us during the implementation of our repository was the fact that the library had an e-strategy that was and still is aligned with the organizational strategy. The successful implementation of the repository in 2006 was just one of many achievements of the previous e-strategy. But you can implement and make a success of your repository without having an e-strategy. The only difference would be that it might be harder to convince people and get their buy-in in the various processes involved.

Analyze the needs of your organization

Evaluate various software products

Do some planning

Develop, Design & Install your repository Once you have the approval of your library management or the relevant parties, you can continue with the installation of the software. Like mentioned earlier, there are many products available on the market. You don’t need to design the repository from scratch. Open source products such as ePrints, Greenstone and DSpace are ready to use out of the box without having to change a thing.

Evaluate your repository It is recommended that you first test ideas within a test environment. First install the software on a developmental server, then a quality assurance server and finally on a production server. Get a group of people together – prospective end-users as well as cataloguers, subject librarians, specialists such as a metadata specialist if you have one, and IT people. Provide them with an evaluation instrument or checklist to guide them, but also encourage them to freely contribute on how the system should be adapted or improved to address the needs of clients at your institution.

Find prospective buyers For Sale What also worked well for us was to start small. We initially identified 4 champion collections to work with. Therefore – try to first run a pilot programme for your institutional repository service. Through this pilot programme you can then get a few early adopters on board. Also use them to evaluate and test the software and convince them to join the programme early on. This will help you to iron out procedures, and field test your policies and assumptions before launching the service to the entire university.

Implement your repository Once the early adopters are convinced and have successfully started to contribute, showcase what they’ve done to others and demonstrate the benefits to others.

Roles & workflow Running this kind of service requires teamwork. It is a shared responsibility between all role players to make a success of this repository. The IR Manager has primary responsibility for managing the repository and supporting the community of users. You will also need an IT manager that will be responsible for all aspects of the technical functioning of the repository. Other role players include Submitters (research assistants, academics, librarians), Reviewers (subject experts or subject librarians), Metadata Editors (Cataloguers) and Collection Administrators (Subject librarians). It is also recommended to have a dedicated metadata specialist, digitization specialist and copyright officer on board.

Policies & Standards For others to trust your repository and the content on your repository, you need to play by the rules. Your repository needs to be OAI-PMH Compliant. What this means is that metadata on your repository should be open for harvesting and indexing by other harvesters and search engines such as Google and Google Scholar. Also – like Derek mentioned yesterday - don’t make the publishers mad. Check publishers policies on self-archiving on the Sherpa Romeo web page, and if the publishers don’t have policies yet, contact them directly. In addition to some international standards, each university or institution also needs to research and write their own policies and regulations on copyright and intellectual property, preservation, open access, metadata etc. What will be helpful here is to get together a Policy Advisory Group that can play an advisory role in the decision making process. Keep on revisiting your policy as new needs arrive and as you grow in experience. Also be prepared to change your policies as the repository matures.

Sell the idea

Provide training

Register your repository Once your repository service is up and running, register it with international metadata harvesters such as OAISTER, with ROAR, openDOAR, Google and Google Scholar. Also increase the visibility of your IR by working with the web masters to create links from your organizational web pages, add an entry on your IR to Wikispace, join mailing lists and contribute to the open source community if you have implemented an open source product.

Communicate, Collaborate and Share with others In the spirit of open access and open source – please share your ideas and innovations, but don’t expect any money in return! We are after all moving in the same direction. In the end not only will library staff, your clients, and your organization benefit, but other institutions nationally and internationally will learn from you, and SA as a whole will benefit since we will be making our research visible and available to the rest of the world. Your reward will be gratitude from the party you helped out, and you will also learn a lot in the process.

Challenges

Start populating your repository! Be prepared that there will be some obstacles in the way, but please don’t let that side-track or stop you. If you use the tips I have shared with you this morning, even if you initially have to do all the work yourself, success is guaranteed in the long term. Just go ahead and move forward by start populating your repository – depending on your service offering definition, clients, researchers or library staff can start submitting conference papers, technical reports, research articles, theses and dissertations, digital image collections, sound clips, video clips, datasets, and many more, and soon all will experience all the benefits of being part of such a project!

Questions. Visit: http://www. up. ac. za/dspace/ Join: irspace@kendy Questions? Visit: http://www.up.ac.za/dspace/ Join: irspace@kendy.up.ac.za Contact us: ina.smith@up.ac.za