A big thank you to all the people who commented on my previous email. I
think a more accurate way is to say that concern of (financial)
sustainability of institutional repositories contributes to the lack of
active engagement from researchers. This of course is not the only reason. I
agree with Stevan that mandate is much more effective way to encourage
self-archiving than using preservation as the motivation.

It has become clear to me that there is little consensus on the extent to
which institutional repositories should be responsible for preservation.
This is reflected in the recent discussion on this list. But I do not think
this disagreement in any way weaken the case for institutional repositories
playing a role in digital preservation. Even those who regard the
institution as having only a short term responsibility for preservation of
institutional research outputs (until these outcomes are formally
published), and those who regard preservation as less of a priority than
getting content into the repositories, do not deny that there is a role of
institutional repositories for preservation (the small p?). The question is
how far this role goes and the institutional responsibilities, versus other
national bodies and organisations, need to be clarified.  The answer to this
is intrinsically related to the mission of an institutional repository, the
purpose it serves and perhaps also the type of content it holds.

I also agree that publishers, legal deposit libraries and institutions
subscribe to electronic journals have a much more significant role in
preserving long-term access to published journal articles than individual
researchers. The fact that the arrangements for preserving long-term access
to electronic journals are far from satisfactory is a separate discussion.
Systems such as LOCKSS are examples of response by academic libraries to
address the e--journal archiving problem.

If we take the broad view of institutional repositories as means to manage
and preserve effectively an institution's knowledge base and intellectual
assets, this means the content of institutional repositories will expand
beyond e-prints to include research data, e-learning materials and other
forms of institutional intellectual outputs, which are generally not
published or preserved elsewhere. Researchers, students, staff and
institutions will require ongoing availability and confidence in the future
accessibility of the content within the repositories. Institutional
repositories therefore naturally have the responsibility to ensure this for
the content they are entrusted with managing by their institutions and
researchers.

A survey recently conducted by the JISC Rights and Rewards in Blended
Institutional demonstrates that preservation is one of the main reasons why
participants contribute teaching materials to an institutional repository.
When asked about the reasons that would make participants more or less
likely to contribute material in the future, "(repositories) help to manage
and preserve resources" gained high percentages for "much more likely" and
"likely" (see table 15 on page 13 and table 26 on page 19 at
http://rightsandrewards.lboro.ac.uk/files/resourcesmodule/@random43cbae8b0d0
ad/1137423150_SurveyReport.pdf. Although considerations for teaching
materials and academic papers are very different, this does suggest that
long-term preservation helps give authors more confidence in the future
accessibility and more incentives to deposit content, at least for learning
and teaching materials.

Helen

Helen Hockx-Yu
Programme Manager
JISC Office, Kings College London
Strand Bridge House (3rd Floor)
138-142 Strand
London WC2R 1HH
Tel: 020 7848 1803
Mobile: 07813 024633