Research repositories: the role of library staff in their management Umbrella 2011 Jackie Wickham Project Coordinator Centre for Research Communications University of Nottingham

Presentation Outline What is Open Access UK Context Survey of UK Repositories Support for repositories – RSP and UKCoRR Future role for library staff

What is Open Access “Open Access (OA) means that scholarly literature is made freely available on the internet, so that it can be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, printed, searched, text mined, or used for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers, subject to proper attribution of authorship.” Research Information Network, June 2010 Key goals have been defined: Declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002 Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in 2003

Routes to OA - Gold Image by Warren Pilkington, zawtowers, Flickr Two routes to OA – forgive me if I’m teaching grandma to suck eggs! Publishing articles in open access journals, ‘author pays’. Usually paid for by institution or included in research grant. Increasingly, UK Universities have established publication funds e.g. Nottingham and Birmingham. Two types: Open Access publishers (PLOS, BioMedCentral, Hindari) Traditional publishers with OA option (Nature, Elsevier, Springer) – Hybrid.

Routes to OA - Green Some text Some more text Another idea More stuff details of that Some more text Another idea More stuff detail 1 detail 2 Image by Rojabro, Flickr Self archiving in a repository of published research (plus others conference papers etc)– Subject e.g Organic E-Prints, PubMedCentral, arXiv, Repec Or Institutional – a way for universities to showcase their research and to preserve it. Usually (if not completely) in addition to publishing in a journal – OA, hybrid, subscription only. Publisher could impose embargo.

Does anyone here work on their institutional repository? Keep your hand up if you are full time.

Context - Growth in UK repositories RSP began in 2006 – The growth has not just been down to RSP obviously! JISC has funded a raft of projects to increase OA, and there have been drivers like RAE and REF whose reporting requirements have driven growth.

Who runs the repository? The Library! In an ongoing survey of UK repositories 98.2% said that the Library was responsible for running the IR. (57 respondents) Photo by PSIP

Survey of UK Repository staff 29th July to 5th September SurveyMonkey Distributed via UKCoRR list 215 members (August 2010) and there were 84 respondents. Interviews with a couple of respondents Wickham, Jackie – Repository Management: an emerging profession in the information sector . Presented at Online Information, 2010. http://www.rsp.ac.uk/help/publications/#publications Accessed 7th July 2011.

Backgrounds of UK staff 95% first degree 74% post grad qualification 78.6% library background

Multi-tasking 76.2% part time 73.8% worked as part of a team Image by Sarah

Roles

Skills Survey asked people to identify the three most important skills for repository work. Libraries have taken on repositories because of traditional role of cataloguing and information management. And whilst these are important, they are not top of the list of skills identified by staff. In the survey. Communication is the most dominant term – not surprising given that main role of repository staff is to radically alter the process of scholarly communication, with their own interpersonal skills being the key weapon in their armoury. Many of the other skills listed such as the delivery of training and presentations and liaison with other departments in the university are linked to this. Strategic planning, project management and prioritisation were also common themes as well as accuracy and attention to detail. Many people highlighted the need for perseverance also using terms such as determination, patience and persistence. One respondent summed it up as “aka bloody minded obsession”!.

Cataloguing and indexing skills However, 44% identified specific cataloguing skills in their top three. And it’s really clear what was top! Critical tasks such as checking copyright on RoMEO

Italian Survey - February 2011 Most important skills were: Ability to promote the repository Managing copyright issues Followed by: Collection development and metadata expertise Project management Cassella, Maria and Morando, Maddalena - Fostering new roles for librarians. Skill sets for repository managers: results of a survey in Italy. Presented at LIBER Annual Conference 2011, Barcelona. http://tinyurl.com/6df6o4d Accessed 7th July 2011

Job satisfaction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVhSqlhNwcI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ih4aAKuRSk http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_3159

Repositories Support Project - Objectives more repositories in higher education institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland more content in existing repositories more types of content in existing repositories closer integration of repositories into institutional information systems promotion of best practice and standards investigation of the new role of institutions in research output curation and access

Repositories Support Project – who we are - Initially a 2.5 year JISC funded project September 2006 – March 2009 Lead Institution – University of Nottingham Partner Institutions – University of Southampton, Aberystwyth University, Digital Curation Centre (University of Edinburgh), UKOLN (University of Bath). - Second phase April 2009 – March 2012 University of Nottingham

The team... Who we are: We have actually had a few changes in our team recently so we took this photo in the Garden of our building so that we could use it in a blog entry about the updates. Here you can see me on the left, our project coordinator, Bill Hubbard next to me, he is the project Director and the Director of the Centre for Research Communications Next is Emily Nimmo who coordinates the training and continuous professional development programme for RSP and on her right is Laurian Williamson who has just joined the team to help disseminate the results of a programme of 6 short projects funded by JISC under the ‘take up and embedding theme’.

The RSP Offers… On site support Enquiry service Website Resources Institutional visits – free, impartial consultancy from a team of experts Enquiry service  - support@rsp.ac.uk  - 0845 257 6860 Website Resources Reusable advocacy materials Briefing papers (technical & procedural) RSP Wiki pages Resource bank of links and references (publications etc) Buddy Scheme Events...

one of the main ways the RSP supports the community is through the provision of training workshops and conferences. Coming back to this, we place great importance in ensuring that they meet the needs of the community and address current issues and concerns. The content of our training has evolved over the years. Originally, it was very much about technical set up and establishing a presence in the institution. Now issues such as increasing content and forging integration with other institutional initiatives and systems are more prevalent. Increasing content in repositories is one of the major challenges facing managers –

Recent Events… RSP Winter School Three-day residential training event Research in the Open: How mandates work in practice Preservation training events Supporting and Influencing the deposit of E-Theses in Higher Education Communicating for effective advocacy http://www.rsp.ac.uk/events/

UKCoRR – United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories www. ukcorr UKCoRR – United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories www.ukcorr.org A group for repository managers by repository managers An independent professional body to allow repository managers to share experiences and discuss issues of common concern To give repository managers a group voice in national discussions and policy development independent of projects or temporary initiatives To grow together as a community and learn from each other’s experiences Mailing list. 248 members (July 2011)

The ‘blended professional” in academic libraries – managing the data There’s a big skill hole! Library personnel could fill this. OA to data is the next big thing. Research Councils now ask for a Data Management plan in all submissions. Good data management is about preservation and access. Researchers don’t have the skills or the desire to manage data well – current situation is they do it very badly! Library staff have some expertise –in cataloguing, indexing and preservation. Need to add knowledge of how research is done in the subject. New hybrid role – Research Information Manager Image by Ian-S Corral, S – Educating the academic librarian as a blended professional

Key skills Metadata creation Management, storage and preservation of data Access rights and policies But also.. Understanding research methods and workflow Especially in the context of the research subject

“The Embedded Research Information Manager” – UCL, Jan 2011 “Funding should be secured to pilot the RIM role, as defined in this report. Evidence of the realised costs/benefits of such a role could then be gathered to evaluate the practicalities, added-value, and long term impact of a wider implementation” “Funding bodies should work together with universities, to support emergent roles such as RIM” “Education and training of both researchers and information professionals needs to be addressed at an institutional and possibly national level, due to changing requirements” This was a JISC funded project to scope the role of a RIM which was completed in January 2011 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/projects/rimroles.aspx

RLUK – Modelling library role in research data management Workforce issues/training for librarians Library school curricula As well as: Tools and advice for researchers Metadata standards Getting RDM on agenda RDM and Research Excellence Framework Open data agenda David Prosser of Research Libraries UK spoke to a library audience last Friday and outlined this strand in their strategy

Thank you to... Gareth Johnson, University of Leicester Miggie Pickton, University of Northampton For their insights into the role.

Jackie Wickham Jacqueline.wickham@nottingham.ac.uk +44(0)115 8466389

Links Centre for Research Communications http://crc.nottingham.ac.uk Repositories Support Project www.rsp.ac.uk RoMEO www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ JULIET www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/ OpenDoar www.opendoar.org JISC www.jisc.ac.uk JISC InfoKit http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/repositories/index_html UKCoRR www.ukcorr.org