Digital Repositories at a Crossroads: Achieving Sustainable Success through Campus-wide Engagement

Jean-Gabriel Bankier, Berkeley Electronic Press
Courtney Smith, Berkeley Electronic Press

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This paper was originally published in the VALA2010 Conference Proceedings, February 2010.

Abstract

Repository initiatives were, at the outset, driven by two noble desires: to remove barriers to access; and, to begin to address the scholarly communications crisis. For universities across the globe, this specifically meant a focus on collecting peer reviewed journal articles. As we discovered together, neither faculty nor other campus constituents were impelled to invest or take ownership in the endeavor and the failure rate among digital repositories was very high.

Over the past few years a new model for the institutional repository has begun to emerge. To guarantee the long-term viability of the institutional repository (IR), the IR must be made integral to units on campus beyond the library. By working closely with Senior Administrators (like Provosts, Deans, and Department Heads), as well as faculty and students, librarians are offering valuable, targeted services that meet constituents’ needs and fulfill the goals of the repository. With this approach, the scope and value of the IR transcend a limited administrative or library function to fundamentally change the role of the library on campus.