Hi Folks
> Firstly, the notion that one 'institutional repository' should hold all of
> a university's e-objects is an absurd one, and generally recognized by my
> audiences as soon as I say it.The present state of software does not
> support such a scheme, nor are the characteristics of the objects anywhere
> near uniform. A great deal of time and money is wasted by people who
> haven't yet realized this simple fact. A university needs several
> ‘e-repositories’ or ‘e- libraries’, whatever you call them.
This resonated with me. I blogged about this some time ago:
http://home.badc.rl.ac.uk/lawrence/blog/2005/03/31/function_creep_and_institutional_repositories
But it's not just about software as that blog tries to say, the reality is
that once IRs go outside documents into research data, the concept of
preservation becomes a lot about having a designated user community and the
(funded) ability to keep track of their wants and requirements. No
institutional IR is ever going to be able to migrate all its e-objects, and
shouldn't pretend that it can.
Bryan
--
Bryan Lawrence
Director of Environmental Archival and Associated Research
Head of the NCAS/British Atmospheric Data Centre
CCLRC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Phone +44 1235 445012; Fax ... 5848; Web: home.badc.rl.ac.uk/lawrence
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