Wednesday, December 05, 2007

developing a service vision for a repository

Dorothea rightly challenged me for not including a service vision in my post on repository goals and vision. I do have something like a vision, but I wouldn't say that it's quite where it needs to be yet. That said, I said I would post it, so I am.

What are the services needed around a repository?

  • Identification and acquisition of valuable content
    • You can't wait for content to come to you – research what’s going on in the departments and at the University, and initiate a dialog.
    • Digital collections must also come from the Library and other University units – University Archives, Museums, etc.
  • Consulting Services
    • Advise on intellectual property and contract/licensing issues for scholarly output.
    • Assistance in preparing files for deposit, creating or converting metadata, and in the actual deposit process.
  • Access
    • Easy-to-use discovery interface with full-text searching and browse.
    • Instruction for community on how to find and use and cite content.
    • Make the content shareable via Open Archives Initiative (OAI).
  • Promotion and Marketing
    • Build awareness of the high cost of scholarly journals, and that we are buying back our own institutional scholarship.
    • Promote the value of building sustainable digital collections – preservation is more than just backing up files.
    • Promote the goals of the Open Access movement, including managed, free online access and a focus on improved visibility and impact.
    • Show faculty that they can build personal and community archives.
    • Market repository building services that will enable the institution to build a body of digital content.
    • Market the repository as a content resource and a venue that increases the visibility of the institution.

2 comments:

Lorcan Dempsey said...

It would be interesting to see a list which looked at things from faculty perspective ('pull') rather than the library perspective ('push'). I quite like the list along the right of the U Minnesota digital conservancy. They are trying to express the value of the repository in ways that relate to faculty incentives.

http://conservancy.umn.edu/

Leslie Johnston said...

I hadn't seen that before. You're right, that's a "Wow!" IR elevator pitch / mission statement framed for the people who are meant to use it:

Free, open access to university digital works;

Higher search engines rankings - increased visibility;

Compliance and accountability for your publicly-funded research;

Expert consultation on copyright, digital formats, and authors' rights.