repository partnerships & faculty or, avoiding the "empty" institutional repository:...

Repository Partnerships & Faculty

Or, Avoiding the "Empty" Institutional Repository: Getting Faculty Participation in Your IR

Suzanne Bell, University of Rochester

04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 2

Definition

In 2003, Clifford Lynch wrote:“[A] university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.


Why you’re here…

…and why IR’s are an appropriate new activity for libraries. Do these concepts sound familiar?– Collection– Organization– Categorization– Sharing, providing access– Preservation


IR’s and Libraries

What’s different is…Instead of collecting from the outside for inside use –You’re trying to collect from the inside for outside use.


IRs and Librarians

DSpace, developed by HP and MIT, made available 2002DSpace source code downloaded ~45,000 times since then150 active installations in 30 countriesLibrarians definitely embraced this concept...


IRs and Librarians (2)

It seemed like such an obviously wonderful idea that we – and most other places, according to a recent ARL survey1 – seriously underestimated the need for staffing.

Ooops.But on to the other players:


IRs and Faculty

NOT very interested!The median total number of items is less than 1,000 for each entire DSpace installation.Yes, there are some outliers –But over and over, the message you hear is: “recruiting content is difficult” and “faculty usually aren’t interested”

WHY NOT?


Studying faculty

We applied “Work Practice” study methods to faculty– In Work Practice studies, a social scientist uses

ethnographic methods to study users’ actual work activities and habits.

– How it happened here:• Detailed observations in 5 departments, telephone

interviews with several more• 6 core team members, 5 auxiliary members• 25 videotaped interviews/observations of faculty


Work Practice Study results - 1

Faculty want to:– Work with co-authors– Keep track of different versions of the same

document– Work from different computers, locations; Mac/PC– Organize their materials according to their own

scheme– Keep up in their fields



Faculty also want to:– Make their work available to others – Control ownership, security, and access– Have easy access to other people’s work– Ensure that documents are persistently viewable or

usable– Have someone else take care of servers & digital

tools



Finally, faculty want…– To be sure not to violate copyright issues– Keep everything related to computers easy &

flawless– Reduce chaos or at least not add to it– Not be any busier!


Overall…

“Faculty members think in terms of reading, researching, writing, and disseminating. They think about the specifics of their research area,…”The most important thing is to be found, used, and cited.There is no attraction, per se, of an IR to a faculty member.

(Foster & Gibbons, 2005)


Bottom Line…

Faculty:It’s All about Me.


Poll Pause

Does this sound like your faculty?


What could we do?

We could personalize the IR:– Researcher Pages:

Focus on the individual faculty memberPull all their work together if spread out thru the IRMake links to outside materials, CVOrganize work according to their own schemeVery easy to do, no additional software or special knowledge required


And demonstrate value

The Stats Counters – providing quantifiable evidence of use… and thus potential citations.Our mantra:

GET SEEN – GET CITED!


Pause to go live

Let’s go see what these things look like:UR Research home: https://urresearch.rochester.eduResearcher Pages:Charles PhelpsRobert WestbrookJeremy Greenwood


Other things we learned

Use the right language!Original promotional language (wrong):

– Institutional repository– Support for variety of formats– Digital preservation– Control who has access* (this was right)– Metadata– Open source software


A better “pitch”

Makes their work easily accessible to others, and findable via Google/Google ScholarGive out links to their work rather than spending time finding files, sending attachments (and the links will always work)Retain ownership of their work & control who sees itPreserves digital items far into the future, safe from loss or damageNo need to maintain a server or worry about backupsNo need to learn anything new or do anything complicated


And do it over, and over…

It takes a LOT of iterations ofthe message. They say “in the fight between

the rock and the river, the river wins.”

Be the river.


One by one

We found presentations to groups such as faculty meetings weren’t very effective. What seems to work is one-on-one encounters where some kind of personal relationship exists.Also check faculty and research center websites.See if your faculty have articles in open access journals.Fancy, expensive brochures are probably not worth it.


Not just faculty

The next generation of faculty: grad studentsInstitutional documents (administrative, “campus memory,” … )Excellent undergraduate work (senior theses, etc.)Approach the PR or administrative staff of specialized research centers (if any)


Additional low hanging fruit…


…er,Material types to focus on

Unedited, longer version of articles, chapters – the “Director’s Cut”Parts or supporting materials that had to be cut for space, format reasons (data sets, images, multimedia)Papers from local workshops that need a homeSpecial projects, collections unique to your institutionDepartments with a tradition of “grey literature”


Be ready for serendipity

Always be ready with elements of the pitch– Someone who complains about a broken link– Or complaining about something happening to their

computer– Check the hit counters yourself and let the author

know– Have rehearsed Google/OAIster searches ready to

show how IR things turn up in results


Relax! Avoid “bureaucrazy” (1)

Yes, you need some policies - but make them as simple and open as possible, avoid jargon.Try to position the policies to support working with individuals rather than departments.Don’t hesitate to do whatever needs to be done: request permissions, scan, convert, deposit for people…


Avoid “bureacrazy” (2)

URLs for our original and current policies are on the selected readings list.


One last word… (well, two)

Take time to think about how you will define success…– Number of items by such and such a time?– Number of different units represented?– Range of materials?– Other?

…and give yourself Time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is an IR.


Your turn:

How many of you are running IR’s?How is the collection of content going? Are there success or horror stories anyone would like to share?

Thank you so much!

I wish you all the best in your IR efforts. We’re all in this together!

Suzanne Bell, [email protected]

repository partnerships & faculty or, avoiding the "empty" institutional repository:...

Documents

different computers

work practice study

work practice study

work available

faculty participation

faculty wantto

community members

users actual work activities