Repository Partnerships & Faculty Or, Avoiding the "Empty" Institutional Repository: Getting Faculty Participation in Your IR Suzanne Bell, University of Rochester

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Definition In 2003, Clifford Lynch wrote: “[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.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Why you’re here… …and why IR’s are an appropriate new activity for libraries. Do these concepts sound familiar? –Collection –Organization –Categorization –Sharing, providing access –Preservation

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04/18/07Computers in Libraries IR’s and Libraries What’s different is… Instead of collecting from the outside for inside use – You’re trying to collect from the inside for outside use.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries IRs and Librar ians DSpace, developed by HP and MIT, made available 2002 DSpace source code downloaded ~45,000 times since then 150 active installations in 30 countries Librarians definitely embraced this concept...

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04/18/07Computers in Libraries IRs and Librar ians (2) It seemed like such an obviously wonderful idea that we – and most other places, according to a recent ARL survey 1 – seriously underestimated the need for staffing. Ooops. But on to the other players:

04/18/07Computers in Libraries IRs and Faculty NOT very interested! The median total number of items is less than 1,000 for each entire DSpace installation. Yes, there are some outliers – But over and over, the message you hear is: “recruiting content is difficult” and “faculty usually aren’t interested” WHY NOT?

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Studying faculty We applied “Work Practice” study methods to faculty –In Work Practice studies, a social scientist uses ethnographic methods to study users’ actual work activities and habits. –How it happened here: Detailed observations in 5 departments, telephone interviews with several more 6 core team members, 5 auxiliary members 25 videotaped interviews/observations of faculty

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Work Practice Study results - 1 Faculty want to: –Work with co-authors –Keep track of different versions of the same document –Work from different computers, locations; Mac/PC –Organize their materials according to their own scheme –Keep up in their fields

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Work Practice Study results - 2 Faculty also want to: –Make their work available to others –Control ownership, security, and access –Have easy access to other people’s work –Ensure that documents are persistently viewable or usable –Have someone else take care of servers & digital tools

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Work Practice Study results - 3 Finally, faculty want… –To be sure not to violate copyright issues –Keep everything related to computers easy & flawless –Reduce chaos or at least not add to it –Not be any busier!

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Overall… “Faculty members think in terms of reading, researching, writing, and disseminating. They think about the specifics of their research area,…” The most important thing is to be found, used, and cited. There is no attraction, per se, of an IR to a faculty member. (Foster & Gibbons, 2005)

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Bottom Line… Faculty: It’s All about Me.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Poll Pause Does this sound like your faculty?

04/18/07Computers in Libraries What could we do? We could personalize the IR: –Researcher Pages: Focus on the individual faculty member Pull all their work together if spread out thru the IR Make links to outside materials, CV Organize work according to their own scheme Very easy to do, no additional software or special knowledge required

04/18/07Computers in Libraries And demonstrate value The Stats Counters – providing quantifiable evidence of use… and thus potential citations. Our mantra: GET SEEN – GET CITED!

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Pause to go live Let’s go see what these things look like: UR Research home: Researcher Pages: Charles Phelps Robert Westbrook Jeremy Greenwood

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Other things we learned Use the right language! Original promotional language (wrong): –Institutional repository –Support for variety of formats –Digital preservation –Control who has access* (this was right) –Metadata –Open source software

04/18/07Computers in Libraries A better “pitch” Makes their work easily accessible to others, and findable via Google/Google Scholar Give out links to their work rather than spending time finding files, sending attachments (and the links will always work) Retain ownership of their work & control who sees it Preserves digital items far into the future, safe from loss or damage No need to maintain a server or worry about backups No need to learn anything new or do anything complicated

04/18/07Computers in Libraries And do it over, and over… It takes a LOT of iterations of the message. They say “in the fight between the rock and the river, the river wins.” Be the river.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries One by one We found presentations to groups such as faculty meetings weren’t very effective. What seems to work is one-on-one encounters where some kind of personal relationship exists. Also check faculty and research center websites. See if your faculty have articles in open access journals. Fancy, expensive brochures are probably not worth it.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Not just faculty The next generation of faculty: grad students Institutional documents (administrative, “campus memory,” … ) Excellent undergraduate work (senior theses, etc.) Approach the PR or administrative staff of specialized research centers (if any)

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Additional low hanging fruit…

04/18/07Computers in Libraries …er,Material types to focus on Unedited, longer version of articles, chapters – the “Director’s Cut” Parts or supporting materials that had to be cut for space, format reasons (data sets, images, multimedia) Papers from local workshops that need a home Special projects, collections unique to your institution Departments with a tradition of “grey literature”

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Be ready for serendipity Always be ready with elements of the pitch –Someone who complains about a broken link –Or complaining about something happening to their computer –Check the hit counters yourself and let the author know –Have rehearsed Google/OAIster searches ready to show how IR things turn up in resultsOAIster

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Relax! Avoid “bureaucrazy” (1) Yes, you need some policies - but make them as simple and open as possible, avoid jargon. Try to position the policies to support working with individuals rather than departments. Don’t hesitate to do whatever needs to be done: request permissions, scan, convert, deposit for people…

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04/18/07Computers in Libraries Avoid “bureacrazy” (2) URLs for our original and current policies are on the selected readings list.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries One last word… (well, two) Take time to think about how you will define success… –Number of items by such and such a time? –Number of different units represented? –Range of materials? –Other? …and give yourself Time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is an IR.

04/18/07Computers in Libraries Your turn: How many of you are running IR’s? How is the collection of content going? Are there success or horror stories anyone would like to share?

Thank you so much! I wish you all the best in your IR efforts. We’re all in this together! Suzanne Bell,