Hello,

We absolutely do need to listen to our communities. We cannot possibly
expect members of our institutions to take ownership of a repository
unless we do. I have a long held belief that it really is not up to us
to decide what constitutes research. Would we really not allow a
composition lecturer in a music department to archive a recent piece of
work because it wasn't in a peer-reviewed journal article? I doubt very
much that we would.

Of course repository success isn't all about the numbers, but suggesting
that a large repository is something of a silo because not everything in
there is from a peer-reviewed publication saddens me enormously.
Yesterday I met with an academic who was thrilled that we are not
focusing solely on peer-review: from feeling that he and his colleagues
couldn't get involved (the department in question doesn't produce many
journal articles given the nature of the subject) he in an instant
wanted to know more. 

That, to me, is success.

Apologies if I seem to be repeating what others have said, but I just
wanted to get that point across.

Sarah


Sarah Taylor
Electronic Resources Librarian
Library
University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton BL3 5AB

01204 903099
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jessie M. N. Hey
Sent: 23 October 2008 14:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [JISC-REPOSITORIES] Fwd: Re: Tracking Open Access Institutional
Repository Growth Worldwide

Really useful comments from both Ian and Peter.
Most of us have tried hard to create our repository or repositories to
fit both our user communities? needs and a vision of a truly global more
open and collaborative world of academic scholarship. However,
institutions have broad needs and a variety of administrative and
academic processes, which we've increasingly realised, need to dovetail
with the repositories for them to work well. These have helped mould the
models we use.  Interestingly, our EdShare resource, focussed more on
sharing learning and teaching, is developing much more like the more
organic ?dark archives? mentioned by Ian Stuart.

We are still in need of more sophisticated views to tease out the
statistics in flexible ways and tools to give better insights into
specific topics or different kinds of content. Keep up the good work
please.
Perhaps we also need to review, as our repositories grow, how we explain
the evolving contents of our repositories for other people and machines.
Ultimately, it shouldn?t matter which silos we?ve started with.

Jessie


----- Forwarded message from [log in to unmask] -----
     Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:03:36 +0100
     From: Peter Cliff <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Peter Cliff <[log in to unmask]>
  Subject: Re: Tracking Open Access Institutional Repository Growth
Worldwide
       To: [log in to unmask]

C.J.Smith wrote:
> While I can see that there has to be a preservation solution for other

> material, I wouldn't want to see it clogging up our repository here at

> the OU. As far as I'm concerned the day we start diluting our content 
> with lecture notes, anniversary photos and corporate publications is 
> the day we loose our credibility as a serious alternative to 
> subscription-based literature searching. The focus of providing open 
> access to peer-reviewed research should not be clouded. Anything else 
> that needs preserving should be housed separately.

I think you probably have to listen to your user community - which
includes both those promoting OA and those wanting to archive
anniversary photos - and provide an appropriate repository (or
repositories) to meet their needs. I don't think its good to pigeon-hole
repositories as solely for OA or solely for data or solely for ought
else. Doing so ignores the broad appeal and benefits of IRs - OA,
digital asset management and the rest. What is important is to build the
right thing for your community and for your institution and the "right
thing" is, mostly, what *they* want.

--
Pete Cliff
Research Officer (Repository Support Project) UKOLN, University of Bath,
Bath BA2 7AY www.ukoln.ac.uk || www.rsp.ac.uk


----- End forwarded message -----


--
Jessie Hey
School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton,
Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK Dr JMN Hey, [log in to unmask]

University of Southampton EdShare   edshare.soton.ac.uk
University of Southampton Research  eprints.soton.ac.uk