ePrints.FRI The institutional publications database of the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Faculty of Computer and Information Science University of Ljubljana Miha Peternel and UNICA SEMINAR VIENNA, NOVEMBER 25-26, 2004

Initiative for an institutional archive Prof. Dr. Franc Solina (September 2002) Open Archives Initiative ePrints software from University of Southampton, UK Bibliographical databases in Slovenia COBISS (main bibliographical database) SICRIS (research publications database) SciX (science exchange) in development

Why did we choose ePrints? Configurability Programmability Open source, standard Linux software Widespread usage (147 known archives) Support (authors, mailing lists, users) Multilingual (interface & data) Web based interface OAI compatible

Setting up an ePrints server Hardware configuration Software configuration Security Backup Logging

Hardware configuration Off the shelf PC server Pentium 4 2.4GHz 512K RAM 2 hard disks in a RAID configuration 2 network ports (public & secure) RedHat Linux Operating System

What does ePrints software do out of the box? It ’ s ready made to archive typical scientific publications of an academic institution. It provides web based interfaces for self archiving, editing, administration, and search functions. It provides user management and subscriptions.

Extending and customizing ePrints Subject areas Custom document types / subtypes Custom attributes (department, lab … ) Multilingual attributes Default attribute values (facilitate input) Web interface customization Google search

Language issues ePrints as a multilingual archive Nearly any field can be multilingual We do store multilingual data, if available ePrints as a multilingual interface Users can choose interface language Requires translation of templates International character sets in practice Minor issues with Slovenian čšž in names

Phases of deployment Test install Test configuration Server install & configuration Departmental test Final configuration Initial deployment (2 months / 1 year) Deployment & maintenance

Access statistics = a rich source of information How often are our documents accessed? (ranking) Where are they accessed from? Where are the referrers to our archive? What search phrases were used to find our papers?

People issues with self-archiving An anecdote I have to do it AGAIN Why is it not done automagically from my home page by automated tools? Veracity of the deta Integrity of the data What ’ s the benefit?

Carrots & sticks to motivate usage Generate documents that users need Documents for the library Personal bibliography Departmental bibliography Promote the work automatically OAI interface Promotion of the archive itself Archiving & Backup

Self-archiving institutional archives need sticks Beyond not-invented-here in computer science Departmental chiefs must enforce usage Researchers tend to be too focused on getting worthy publications, they ignore other ways of dissemination An anecdote: a visit from Microsoft Research

A live demonstration of usage Publishing a new document Administration of a new document (editing) Live demonstration

Access patterns Traffic analysis AwStats Webalizer Traffic reports (live)

The reach of ePrints.FRI Harvested by several OAI search engines -lj.si.html Harvested by CiteSeer Special status of ePrints archives discussed with some search engines (Yahoo)

Usage patterns Department Provides exact & cumulative data Some users like automation and backup Faculty A place to publish student theses A single point for search and backup Preservation of electronic documents of researchers that leave institution Students A research tool for thesis examples Access to some book (pre)prints

Towards more usage There is value for the institution Encouraging self-archiving and open archiving Promote use to other departments Improving ePrints.FRI Adding little features users like (BibTeX … )

Conclusion Software for institutional open archives is freely available It requires very little investment in terms of equipment, publishing, editing and administration costs It is up to institutions to mandate archiving in institutional open archives (and use collected data, access statistics … )

Thank you ePrints.FRI.uni-lj.si