2:15 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Institutional repositories (IR) keep emerging at colleges and universities in response to the open access scholarly communication environment. Creating a successful information system requires certain critical elements: a sound infrastructure, stakeholders’ involvement in the stages of design and implementation, assessment of the system throughout its lifecycle, and promotion of system usage. All these factors are essential to developing a successful IR. There are numerous case studies on IR, yet research on issues relating to staffing, usability, user involvement, marketing, and assessment is lacking. Get the results of an ARL survey on IR development and implementation including the leading IR platform adopted among the 80 participating libraries, their operational styles, their scope of IR, the extent of usability testing and needs assessment conducted, availability of staff for overseeing development and implementation of IR, and major marketing methods applied, as well as the most difficult challenges encountered and commonly used approaches to address those issues. Hear current trends and gain insights for those planning to establish IR at their own institutions.
