Time is right for major investment in repositories infrastructure

From Philip Pothen, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee):

“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.’ (…)

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. (…)”

The report was written by Alma Swan of Key Perspectives and Chris Awre of the University of Hull and it is available from the Digital Repositories page.