[LINK] Issues in Providing a Repository Service in Aussie Universities

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

D-Lib Magazine

May/June 2007 Volume 13 Number 5/6 (snipped)

<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may07/henty/05henty.html>

"Ten Major Issues in Providing a Repository Service in Australian 
Universities"

Margaret Henty
Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories
<Margaret.Henty at apsr.edu.au> 
 
Introduction:

By mid 2006, all Australian universities had established, or were partway 
to establishing, institutional repository services. 

The development of institutional repository services can often be related 
to the open access movement, which seeks to make valued research outputs 
openly available by encouraging academics to place their publications 
into repositories, enhancing their availability and bypassing the high 
cost of journal subscriptions. 

However, many universities have extended the functionality of their 
repository services for other purposes, such as giving scholars the 
opportunity to develop their own research portfolio, providing a means of 
improving research reporting, establishing an electronic publishing 
service, or giving access to collections of images or other research 
outputs. The potential for development seems endless. 

At the same time, university research increasingly involves the use, 
generation, manipulation, sharing and analysis of digital resources. 

The importance of what is generally called "eResearch" on the national 
agenda shows the need for improved data management and sustainability 
practices to support research over the longer term. 

This raises questions of the relationship between the repository and 
eResearch and provides challenges to repository managers to broaden their 
thinking still further to help meet these needs. 

The Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR) was 
established in early 2004 with a focus on issues of access continuity and 
the sustainability of digital collections. 

In mid-2006, APSR began a series of interviews with senior university 
personnel who are responsible for the oversight of research, for the 
repository service or for research data management...

The purpose of this article is to identify the major issues that 
interviewees thought would be most significant for their repository 
services in the next five to ten years.  (snip)

Conclusion

This article identifies the issues relating to repository management that 
are seen as important by a group of senior academic administrators. 

These reflect to some degree the way in which repositories have developed 
in Australia, where for the most part they have been introduced for the 
worthy purpose of giving researchers a vehicle to enhance the 
availability of their publications by making them available via open 
access. 

The time is now here for a broader definition of the repository service, 
as some are recognising. Reconceptualising the repository is a challenge.

It remains to be seen whether this resolves the issues identified here or 
simply presents new ones. 
--

Cheers all ..
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia