KNUST Institutional Repository experience by Abednego Corletey

KNUST Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)

Front View Rear View KNUST Library

Member of CARLIGH Library System – Central Library 6 departments – 6 College Libraries 17 Professional librarians About 10 Para-professionals Seating Capacity of about 1400 – abt 5.84% of student population

KNUST Library A broad collection of monographs, theses, WB, WHO, FAO, pubs, serials/journals, video collection, digital records, special collection on Ghana Total book stock a little above 110,000 Access to over 19,000 electronic (online and CD- ROM) peer reviewed sources and books

Outline KNUST IR Hardware Software Personnel Current content KNUST Ranking Challenges Implications on KNUSTSpace Targets Current approaches Looking ahead

KNUST Mission Statement The mission of KNUST is to provide an environment for teaching, research and entrepreneurship training in Science and Technology for development of Ghana and Africa. KNUST will also provide service to the community, be open to all the people of Ghana and positioned to attract scholars, industrialists and entrepreneurs from Africa and other international communities.

Proposed Mission Statement University based IR that offers services to the KNUST community to enable them manage and disseminate in digital forms academic and research output …. Created within the university or donated to it

KNUST IR Named KNUSTSpace KNUSTSpace basically set up to showcase the intellectual output from KNUST Promote scholarly communication and sharing among members of the community and other researchers globally Aid teaching and learning, including re-use and re-purposing of data/ information Support management of digital assets and preservation requirements To mitigate the publications/journals Crisis

KNUST IR …contd Expected to include technical reports, research findings, theses, conference papers, book chapters, journal articles etc produced by members of the KNUST community Has approximately 600 entries All entries metadata of post graduate theses Information of each entry consist of metadata and abstracts url =

Hardware in use One server from the cluster of servers at KNUST NOC Server is HP Proliant ML350 G5 quad core Xeon gHz, 2gb RAM, 150gb HDD (2X) Two Desktops dedicated for IR Intel dual Core, 2.2GHz, 2gb RAM, 320gb HDD One shared scanner HP5500 flatbed

Software DSpace Pdfmaker Irfanview Microsoft photo manager (Microsoft suite 2007) Lacking now is an OCR software

Personnel Two staff – One shared Systems Analyst – Assistant Librarian Supporting staff – One typist (shared)

Current Content Abstracts and metadata of post graduate student theses About 540 entries A few abstracts from JUST (Journal of Science and Technology) Published by KNUST

Impact on KNUST ranking Ranking as at Jan 2009 – KNUST 52 nd position for 100 best Universities in Africa KNUSTSpace started in February 2009 July 2009 ranking – KNUST at 30 th position for 100 best in Africa

Challenges Acceptance of IR concept Authorities Community members Contribution of content Institutional support – Policies – Funding – Staff training (managers and users)

Implications on KNUSTSpace No Management committee at present No Policy statement as blue print for operating IR No specific budget allocation for running IR No statement on core staff training and retention Inability to load full text of articles

Current approaches adopted Intellectual (conceptual, logical, the greater good) Emotional (hearts and minds, enlightened self-interest) Political (necessitation, external drivers, compliance with policy)

Targets for year ahead To carry out more advocacy among members of KNUST community Advocate for setting up a management team Push for a policy statement Push for budgetary allocation Get more staff for KNUSTSpace

Targets for year ahead …contd To upload more varied scholarly content Get more content providers/editors on board Train more users Promote more self archiving Improve our standing in the rankings

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