1. Using Item Mapping to Create Communities in An Institutional Repository: The Washington State University Experience
Kay Vyhnanek
Scholarly Communication Librarian
Washington State University
Rising to Digital Challenges:
Best Practices Exchange 2008
Helena MT May 21-23, 2008

2. What’s In Store A Little Background info on Research Exchange
DSpace software – why we chose it
Policy questions
What goes in it (with any luck)
How to establish communities
What Is Item Mapping
What it looks like
What it does
Why Map Items?
What Are The Benefits

3. Background Info Why We Chose Dspace
Systems Librarian reviewed available software and made recommendation
Had backing of MIT and Hewlett Packard
Expected it to handle the types of material we intended to include

4. More Background Policy Questions What goes in it
Electronic dissertations and theses
Anything we can get our hands on! (WSU research, that is)
How to establish communities
What structure to use
How best to reflect WSU research

5. What is Item Mapping?

6. What Item Mapping Does

7. Why Map Items?
Provides more exposure for individual items within Research Exchange
Creates a more robust set of communities and collections

8. The Difference It Makes:
Without Mapping
Communities in Research Exchange
Choose a community to browse its collections.
Department of Anthropology [13]
Department of English [1]
Electronic Dissertations and Theses [549]
Electronic Journals [355]
Graduate School [33]
Intercollegiate College of Nursing [5]
International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists [3]
Libraries [92]
Sustainability Initiative [2]
WSU Academic Showcase Poster Session [19]
WSU Administration [1]
WSU Arboretum Committee [1]

9. On the Other Hand -- When Mapping Is Used

10. Benefits
Creates communities and collections that are representative of the departments and other units on campus
Makes the Research Exchange more viable as far as generating items for inclusion
Provides a basis on which to grow

11. Questions? Comments? Kay Vyhnanek kayv@wsu.edu