Repositories - Libraries of the Future
Repositories are rapidly emerging as a key element of research and other institutional infrastructures and libraries are playing a central role in their establishment and development, providing an important service to teaching and research staff that enables them to make their work openly available, is easy to use and fits with existing workflows.
The direct involvement of librarians means that their information management skills are brought to bear on resources usually outside their remit, and ensures that repositories are set up with full consideration to metadata, interoperability and the needs of users, ensuring in turn that a culture of creating useful, robust and sustainable collections of resources is established at the institution. Libraries are playing a central role in the establishment and development of repositories
As scholarly communications are transformed by the global online environment, making the act of ‘publication’ almost instantaneous and making resources available to all, so libraries are at the heart of emerging models, helping to ensure that these models have the needs of users, researchers, authors and institutions at their heart.
But with such far-reaching changes come challenges too. For example, engaging researchers, research teams, teachers, senior management and administrative staff is an undertaking that requires significant investment over time, while mainstreaming repositories into the life of an institution requires repository administrators to be flexible and respond to particular needs and new drivers as they arise. Approaching users as providers of a service becomes a new requirement, and this may mean ensuring that administrative requirements on them are kept to a minimum. And, if budgets are hard-pressed, how far will existing funding run?
There are also a number of questions around the skills needed, such as the technical skills required, ranging from software configuration to the development of new functionality. Repository management involves promotional skills as advocacy is likely to be a constant requirement, while user survey skills may also be required to ensure that the repository service is meeting user requirements. Repository administrators will need to continue to address Intellectual Property Rights issues to ensure that the service is fully compliant with the legal environment while still providing a usable and useful service.
In the face of such challenges, however, there is a great deal of support available to librarians and others which address these and other questions - principally the Repositories Support Project, SHERPA and JISC Repositories programmes.