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Institutional repositories: assessing their value to the academic community

Institutional repositories: assessing their value to the academic community Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of institutional repositories in New Zealand, exploring factors affecting the adoption and success of institutional repositories from the perspective of the library managers who established them, and from the perspective of the academic community. Design/methodology/approach – Data from a series of interviews with library managers are compared with the findings from a randomised national survey of academics. Findings – The responses of the library managers suggest that they are positive about the value of their institutional repository, and the progress made towards recruiting content for it. Data from the survey of academics indicate that academics have been slow to embrace the concept of institutional repositories, and show little interest in using repositories for increasing the accessibility of their own work, or to access the work of others. The number of deposits remains low, mirroring patterns throughout the world, and subject or disciplinary repositories appear to have greater value to the academic community. Practical implications – The future long‐term sustainability of institutional repositories depends on gaining a stronger commitment from the academic community, or developing different goals, against which their success might be measured. Originality/value – The study is the first random survey of academic staff across all disciplines, and an entire country, and the findings have a very high level of generalisability. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Performance Measurement and Metrics Emerald Publishing

Institutional repositories: assessing their value to the academic community

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References (32)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1467-8047
DOI
10.1108/14678041011064052
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of institutional repositories in New Zealand, exploring factors affecting the adoption and success of institutional repositories from the perspective of the library managers who established them, and from the perspective of the academic community. Design/methodology/approach – Data from a series of interviews with library managers are compared with the findings from a randomised national survey of academics. Findings – The responses of the library managers suggest that they are positive about the value of their institutional repository, and the progress made towards recruiting content for it. Data from the survey of academics indicate that academics have been slow to embrace the concept of institutional repositories, and show little interest in using repositories for increasing the accessibility of their own work, or to access the work of others. The number of deposits remains low, mirroring patterns throughout the world, and subject or disciplinary repositories appear to have greater value to the academic community. Practical implications – The future long‐term sustainability of institutional repositories depends on gaining a stronger commitment from the academic community, or developing different goals, against which their success might be measured. Originality/value – The study is the first random survey of academic staff across all disciplines, and an entire country, and the findings have a very high level of generalisability.

Journal

Performance Measurement and Metrics – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jul 6, 2010

Keywords: Archiving; Open systems; Academic libraries; New Zealand

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