Primary Research Group has published The International Survey of 
Institutional Digital Repositories (ISBN # 1-57440- 090-8) and would like 
to share some of its research results.

Just a few of the study’s many findings are that:

•	The average institutional digital repository spent $78,802 (US) in 
start up costs.

•	Close to 41% of survey participants purchased software to develop 
their digital repositories. US-based institutions were much more likely 
than others to purchase software for this purpose. 

•	The average repository in the sample has been in existence for 
2.85 years, with a range of ‘just newly started’ to ten years.

•	On average, a drop more than 12% of the content in the 
repositories came from pre-existing repositories maintained by academic 
departments or some other institutional unit.

•	A sixth of the libraries in the sample used Digital Commons 
software, and 28% of US-based repositories used this product.

•	14.81% of the institutions in the sample plan to purchase new 
repository software within the next two years.

•	Only 5.56% of the repositories in the sample use blogs to 
publicize the repository while close to 41% use a paper promotional 
brochure.

•	Those repositories in the sample that required less than 500 hours 
of labor per year had budgets of just less than $9,000 US. The largest 
repositories, those requiring 3,600 hours or more annually, had budgets 
averaging $145,444. 

•	5.21% of the overall labor required to run the digital 
repositories in the sample came from academic departments not connected to 
the library.

•	The art, architecture and music category was considered a heavy 
contributor by 4.88% of the repositories in the sample, and a significant 
contributor by 9.76%. 41.47% considered art, architecture or music to be 
modest contributors. Most significant and all heavy contributors from 
these fields were from the USA. Once again, the BA/MA granting colleges 
were more likely to have significant or heavy contributors in this subject 
area.

•	The mean number of journal articles held by the repositories in 
the sample was 772 with a mean of 162.

•	4.88% of the journal articles in the repositories were subject to 
page view limits.

•	15.56% of the repositories in the sample were funded largely 
through grants.

About half of the libraries in the sample are from the USA but the study 
presents data from 56 institutional digital repositories from eleven 
countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, South Africa, 
India, Turkey and other countries. The 121-page study presents more than 
300 tables of data and commentary and is based on data from higher 
education libraries and other institutions involved in institutional 
digital repository development. 

The report covers costs, budgets, software, personnel, open access 
policies, marketing, relations with faculty and other contributors of 
content, and many other issues relevant to those managing or designing an 
institutional digital depository. Data is broken out by geographic region, 
type of college or institution, and scope of the repository, defined by 
the number of man-hours per year needed for operation. 

For more information visit www.primaryresearch.com.

James Moses, Research Director
Primary Research Group Inc.
www.primaryresearch.com