Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS)
Collection Management & Development Section
Collection Development & Electronic Resources Committee
Content Recruitment for Institutional Repositories (IR's)
An annotated bibliography for a panel discussion at the 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference. It focuses on relevant articles published from Jan. 2005 through May 2007.
Compiled by
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Adrian K. Ho Collections Coordinator University of Houston Libraries
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Joe Toth Collection Development Librarian Middlebury College LIS |
Davis, P. M., & Connolly, M. J. L. (2007). Institutional repositories: Evaluating the reasons for non-use of Cornell University's installation of DSpace. D-Lib Magazine, 13(3/4). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march07/davis/03davis.html
The authors report their study of Cornell faculty's (non-)use of the University's IR. Faculty tend to post their scholarly outcomes on personal Web pages or to disciplinary repositories. They have concerns over self-archiving in the IR. The authors conclude that faculty's use of the IR is predicated on their disciplinary cultures and reward structures. Librarians who promote the use of IR's have to address those issues.
Foster, N. F., & Gibbons, S. (2005). Understanding faculty to improve content recruitment for institutional repositories. D-Lib Magazine, 11(1). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january05/foster/01foster.html
Based on their anthropological study of faculty's work practices, the authors report the faculty's specific needs and lack of understanding of the IR promotional language. To increase the faculty's participation, the authors have simplified the IR deposit process, created researcher pages for faculty, and promote the IR in the faculty's language. They argue that "with a faculty-centric approach to the design and marketing of repositories, IRs could become a compelling and useful tool."
Hassen, M. (2006). Content recruitment and development: A proactive approach to building an institutional repository. EDUCAUSE 2006 Annual Conference, Dallas. Podcast: http://connect.educause.edu/blog/carie417/educause2006_podcast_content_recruitment_and_development/24764?time=1177285409
The presenter discusses strategies that are effective in recruiting content for the IR at the University of Pennsylvania: 1. Start small with targeted schools/campus units; 2. Promote the IR to schools/campus units as a vehicle for publicity, visibility, and accessibility; 3. Secure administrative buy-in from schools/campus units; 4. Identify faculty advocates and seek out prospective participants; 5. Adopt the word-of-mouth approach for marketing the IR and recruiting content; 6. Increase the campus-wide publicity of the IR; 7. Provide deposit service for faculty; 8. Provide monthly feedback/statistics to faculty on how their deposited materials were used.
Jenkins, B., Breakstone, E., & Hixson, C. (2005). Content in, content out: The dual roles of the reference librarian in institutional repositories. Reference Services Review, 33(3), 312-324.
Authors describe the University of Oregon's approach to IR development, including early involvement of reference/subject librarians in the IR effort. This participation facilitated creation of user communities for receptive academic areas, which in turn stimulated content recruitment in these areas.
Jingfeng, X. (2006). Personal name identification in the practice of digital repositories. Program: Electronic Library & Information Systems, 40(3), 256-267.
The author analyzes current name authorities in digital repositories to determine if they advance or inhibit the retrieval capability of most repositories. Because of variations, names restrict online searches. Possible solutions with practical applicability are supplied, including adding an extra metadata field to ensure unique identification.
Kim, J. (2006). Motivating and impeding factors affecting faculty contribution to institutional repositories. Digital Curation & Trusted Repositories: Seeking Success at Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2006 - Chapel Hill, NC, USA). http://sils.unc.edu/events/2006jcdl/digitalcuration/Kim-JCDLWorkshop2006.pdf
This pilot study, prologue to an ensuing larger investigation, examined elements that could account for faculty contribution to IRs. Preliminary results showed that benefit factors such as accessibility, publicity, and professional recognition might be more influential to prospective contributors than cost factors such as preservation concerns, publisher restrictions, and efforts required to self-archive.
Mark, T., & Shearer, K. (2006). Institutional repositories: A review of content recruitment strategies. World Library and Information Congress: 72nd IFLA General Conference and Council (Seoul, Korea). http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla72/papers/155-Mark_Shearer-en.pdf
Authors review content recruitment strategies for populating IRs in the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) that included a literature review, contact with IR implementers, and a call for input posted on listservs. Six recruitment strategies or practices are identified: general promotional activities; depositing services; content harvesting; researcher bibliographies; usage/citation information; and university policies.
Sale, A. (2006). The acquisition of open access research articles. First Monday, 11(10). http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/sale/index.html
The author studies the effects of the mandatory IR deposit policy on researchers' self-archiving in three institutions. The findings reveal that it took several years for the policy to be institutionalized. The author points out that IR administrators should avidly promote their IR's in order to facilitate the institutionalization. He also argues that institutions which consider implementing a mandatory deposit policy should take note of the recommendation, "deposit immediately, and make open access as soon as legally possible."
Westell, M. (2006). Institutional repositories: Proposed indicators of success. Library Hi Tech, 24(2), 211-226.
The author identifies indicators that may provide a framework for evaluating institutional repositories. They are: mandate; integration with planning; funding model; relationship with digitization centers; interoperability; measurement; promotion; and preservation strategy. She argues that, while seeding the repository with content is important initially, defining the nature or scope of the repository to users ultimately clarifies the IR's mandate to the point where strategies for growth and plans for promotion become easier to generate.
Bibliographies of relevant articles published before 2005:
Charles W. Bailey, Jr.'s Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (Section 9: Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI): http://www.digital-scholarship.org/sepb/techrep.htm
MIRACLE's (Making Institutional Repositories A Collaborative Learning Environment) IR Bibliography: http://miracle.si.umich.edu/bibliography.html