2017 Charleston Library Conference

Faculty members have a bewildering array of disciplinary, funder, and publisher repositories to choose from as they seek to maximize the impact of their research findings and comply with funder mandates. Where does the institutional repository (IR) fit in this increasingly crowded landscape? And how can IRs connect into research workflows in a way that eases researchers’ pain rather than adds to it?

In this session, librarians will share how their organizations are repositioning their repository services to remain relevant to their campus communities. Each will describe the challenges they are encountering, the main opportunities they perceive, and how they are positioning their repository services for success at a time when there is widespread skepticism about the IR’s value.

A particular theme of the panel will be connected scholarship. A decade after Dorothea Salo’s influential article, many IRs remain siloed -- “roach motels” where data goes in but struggles to come out. If they are to prosper, IRs need to be linked into the research information management environment of their parent institution and the wider world of open scholarship. Ensuring that identifier schemes are embraced, usage stats are gathered and communicated, and indexing and discovery services are welcomed are essential strategies but too often run up against the inflexible software architecture choices of the past.

Balancing strategic thinking with operational reality, the presenters will provide practical guidance on approaches to repositioning their IRs that they have tried that appear to be working, those in progress, and those that are not so promising. They’ll share organizational and technological challenges they are facing and describe choices that their institutions made in the past that may need rethinking. Plenty of time will be assigned for whole group discussion.