Time is right for major investment in repositories infrastructure, says report
The research community should be engaged at the highest level to encourage the establishment of repositories in UK education and research, says a report published today. While one third of UK universities have an Open Access repository to house digital content such as research papers, pre-prints, theses, working papers, conference proceedings, teaching materials, etc., most have very little content in them, the report continues.
Acknowledging that an important foundation has already been laid in the establishment of a repository infrastructure for the UK, the report – commissioned by Jisc – says, however, that the time is right for the development of the shared, national services upon which a step-change in the adoption, development and use of institutional repositories now depends.
Beginning with an examination of user requirements, the report sets out which national services will be needed to support such an infrastructure, suggesting that support will be needed by the community particularly in the areas of metadata provision (to support cross-searching and resource discovery), IPR and copyright, and preservation. In addition, says the report, ‘advocacy work to the author community is critically important in raising the levels of deposition of research postprints.’
The report calls on Jisc to take the leadership role in these areas and ‘to construct where necessary the appropriate communication channels with the research community, with repositories and with potential service providers, and to coordinate their efforts.’
With Jisc investing £3.5m in its digital repositories programme and an additional £13.5m over the next two years through its capital programme, the report provides both an evidence base on which Jisc can provide the ‘strong management role’ called for by the report, as well as a set of recommendations upon which to focus its activities in this area.
Neil Jacobs, repositories programme manager at Jisc, welcomed the publication of the report, saying:
"The 'Linking UK Repositories' report describes a landmark study by Key Perspectives Ltd and the University of Hull, in which organisational, technical and business models for repository services are reviewed. The report will chart the way ahead for Jisc and others, as novel applications are built over the emerging repository infrastructure."
The report was written by Alma Swan of Key Perspectives and Chris Awre of the University of Hull.
The report is available from the Digital Repositories page.