John Wilbanks (director of Science Commons) opened the SPARC Digital Repositories meeting [Baltimore, November 17-18, 2008] with a message that greatly resonated with those attending: do something no has imagined, and don’t wait. Indeed, many of the 330 repository managers, librarians, publishers, vendors, and technology specialists from around the world who convened in Baltimore to share success stories and failures regarding digital repositories, have already done so and plan to continue the trajectory.
According to Heather Joseph (executive director of SPARC), digital repositories have “moved out of infancy into a long and healthy life cycle,” and the many panelists and speakers at the conference demonstrated this. The two main themes of the conference were that data needs to be inter-operable, connected, and shared; and that the success of repositories is connected to the services they can provide to faculty.
The initial panel focused on new horizons, but first provided a review of the current position of repositories. Norbert Lossau (director of Goettingen State and University Library) summarized that while many repositories exist (the count has now grown to approximately 1,200), the deposits to them remain low. Sayeed Choudhury (associate dean for library digital programs, Johns Hopkins University) indicated that despite this, institutional repositories (one kind of digital repository) act as a beginning and not an end to the process of ensuring open access to scholarly digital content. Shawn Martin (scholarly communication librarian at University of Pennsylvania) and Jennifer Campbell-Meier (doctoral student, University of Hawaii) continued by noting that changing the mission statement of an institutional repository to come more in line with content creators and their needs can, perhaps, lead to higher deposit levels. For many faculty members, according to Martin, the issue of open access is not as important as raising their profile in the online environment....
David Prosser (director of SPARC Europe) asserted that the open access policy argument has been won by the open access movement through the impetus of initiatives like the European Union’s (EU) Lisbon Agenda, which strives to make the EU the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010.” Prosser expects that we are fast approaching a time when “it will be unusual for any leading institution or funder not to have an [open access] mandate.” ...
Catherine Mitchell (director, eScholarship Publishing Group, California Digital Library) suggested provocatively that conversations about “the repository” in and of itself should stop and be reframed to focus on publishing services. She argued that institutional repositories stand as by-products of services rendered rather than ends in themselves.
An example of operating a repository on a small, liberal arts college campus came from Macalester College. Janet Sietmann (manager, DigitalCommons Project) and Teresa Fishel (library director) showcased the student research and publications available in their institutional repository. Both advised against “death by planning,” urging strongly that all library staff should promote the repository, and suggested starting with a specific project that meets the needs of a specific audience....
David Shulenberger (vice president for academic affairs, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges)...relayed a short synopsis of the history of publication and distribution and focused on “the gift” of scholarly knowledge. The role of digital repositories, in his view, is to assure that intellectual products paid for by donors and benefactors remain available for the public. Further, institutional repositories should showcase to citizens the research and scholarship happening on academic campuses and thereby enhances the value of the university in the eyes of the public.
Shulenberger offered seven steps for library and information professionals to consider: have an institutional repository; work with administrators to build understanding; initiate discussions about intellectual property policies; support efforts to spread public access policies, like the one put forward by the National Institutes of Health; educate campus units to support the best interests of their members; work with departments to produce deposit habits; and brand your institutional repository products as university material....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/08/2009 02:31:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
