Basudeb Adhikary Librarian, Netaji Mahavidyalaya, Hooghly, WB & Sarmistha Adhikary Librarian AKPC Mahavidyalaya, Hooghly, WB

 The major way to make knowledge free is Open Access Initiatives.  Open Access Initiatives has two major manifestations, firstly Open Access Journals and secondly Open Access Institutional Repositories.  This presentation aims to find out the situation of the Institutional Repositories in India.

 It is digital in nature.  Centralized collection of intellectual output of any organization.  Apart from intellectual output, administrative documents and teaching materials coming out of the normal academic life may be a part of IR.  IR may be single organization based or multiple organization based.  Open to members (Full access) or All (to a certain extent or full access) depending upon repository policy.

 Proper management of intellectual resources in IR.  Consistent metadata structure for similar objects in IR.  Proper dissemination of resources, long term preservation are the other areas of concern.

 Establishment of IR is beneficial to all stakeholders of the organization. The benefits may be four pronged.  Benefits to the AUTHORS (contributors).  Benefits to the INSTITUTION (sponsoring body).  Benefits to the USERS (beneficiary).  Benefits to the LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CENTERS (facilitators).

 Instead of scattered in different databases, all the intellectual output (created in his institutional life!) of an individual are kept in a well organized way in a single place.  Submission to IR increases visibility, thereby inviting and increasing citation of an article.  Well preserved and permanently accessible to all.

 Increase the global visibility of the intellectual output of the institution.  Act as an advertising tool for the institute.  When administrative records are submitted in the IR, organizational history is well preserved.  A knowledge bank of the institute can be created by accumulating all the works of the intellectual capability.

 User can browse, search the documents submitted to an IR freely.  In some cases users can access the full text, in some can access partially.  In case of partial access, users can avail ‘Request a copy’ service.  Gray literature like teaching materials, unpublished documents can be accessed from the IR.

 A librarian feels embarrassed when he can not satisfy the user’s need.  In today’s library world the budget is shrinking and document (print & Online) price is increasing. The embarrassment continues.  Online journals and institutional repositories can save the day for him.  Libraries can assume greater role of reaching global clientele through institutional repositories.

 As per Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), there are 65 repositories in India.  As per Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), there are 51 repositories in India.  India stands second in Asia after Japan (89). (ROAR information)  India stands third after Japan (135) and Taiwan (58). (OpenDOAR information)  We choose 60 IRs for our study.

 Among 60 chosen IRs, 15 cannot be opened during the study.  Indian Institute of Science Open Access repository is the first IR in India started in  Among 45 IRs, 3 contain exclusively electronic thesis and dissertation. (Vidyanidhi, Mahatma Gandhi University Thesis Online)  The largest repository is Indian Academy of Science Publication of Fellows (39,300 documents)

 The smallest IR is WHO India Health Repository. (19 documents)  21 IR s are multi disciplinary in nature.  18 IR s deal exclusively on science technology and allied subjects.  2 IR s contain document regarding library and Information Science and 1 repository each for Developmental studies and Literature.

 2 IR s namely Vidya Prasarak Mandal and e- Gyankosh contains exclusively with teaching material.  Regarding repository software, 11 are using Eprints software, 33 are using DSpace software and only 1 is using Nitya software.  Among 45 repositories, 41 repositories allows ‘Staff only’ submission. Other 4 repositories allow authors not associated with institute to submit document to the repository.

 Among 45 IR s consulted, 4 have not provided clear submission policy  Regarding accessing the documents, all the repositories provide browsing and searching facility to its users irrespective of affiliation to the organization.  5 institutional repositories do not allow outsiders to access full text of the documents.  33 repositories allow outside users full / partial access to the full text of documents with or without registration.

 8 repositories have not any stated access policy in their web sites.  World ranking of 1222 repositories are done by  Only 18 Indian institutional repository featured in this ranking being at the 106 th position in ranking.

 Among 60 repositories studied, 15 can not be accessed, they may be available in intranet or LAN. This is contrary to open access initiative.  Universities feature in the list of IR rarely in comparison to research institutes.  IR on social science or humanities subjects are rare to find.  Only 18 IR get their place among 1222 repositories globally ranked is not a fair picture.

 The development of IR s in India is fast and many institutes are taking up initiatives to set up them.  UGC released ‘Regulations 2005’ for submission of metadata and doctoral thesis in electronic format, so that Electronic Thesis and dissertation repository can be made easily.  The prospect of Indian IR s are bright.  Libraries can hope now to serve their clientele in more better fashion.