Hi Paula
Can't offer any great wisdom, but what seems to work reasonably well
here is emailing author individually and asking for specific files. Yes,
it's time-consuming. Yes, some people don't reply. But a lot do, and
send the files you asked for and volunteer others. You can also pickup
quite a lot of 'feedback' about what they think of the service, both
good and bad, giving you a chance to correct any misconceptions and
respond to concerns.
All this in addition to the usual stuff, speaking at Departmental
meetings, articles in the in-house magazine etc.
I wish you luck!
Heather Ewington
Durham University
-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paula Fitzpatrick
Sent: 18 March 2010 09:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: A long , hard slog?
Dear all,
Apologies in advance for lengthy e-mail - looking for a few words of
advice & wisdom to throw this way.
I am the repository officer here at Newcastle University. We have an
in-house built research management system recently launched and a open
access research repository (also written in-house, not a proprietary
piece of software).
We have an automatic feed of bibliographically checked records from the
research management system to our repository, thus our numbers of bib
records are ticking up nicely, and I recognise the value of this in
itself - lots of data for people to reach the item should them wish to.
However, the numbers of full text records are low - around 10% of our
total.
I know this is a problem across the repository community, but I wonder
if it is something others are struggling with & considering right now.
I think perhaps the stage we are it is looking for a 'strong encouraging
statement' from University management.
I'm not sure how much support for a mandate there would be (or even the
appetite for it within the library) but at the same time, the numbers
depositing are low - it almost seems self-fulfilling.
Having brought my concerns up within the library and the people
responsible for the research management system, I am tasked with writing
a paper for the University Research Committee. It sounds like I am
asking you to do my work here, but I just wanted to get a feel for how
you persuaded your wider University to get behind this - if you have
done - (aside from the usual wider access, increased impact, REF etc).
Maybe there isn't anything & its just a long hard slog - which would be
reassuring in its own way!
Apologies for such a long e-mail, and I do appreciate your time.
Many thanks
Paula
********************************
Paula Fitzpatrick
E-Repository Officer
Robinson Library
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
[log in to unmask]
0191 222 7627
http://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/
********************************
********************************
Paula Fitzpatrick
E-Repository Officer
Robinson Library
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
[log in to unmask]
0191 222 7627
http://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/
********************************
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