Digital Repositories: An investigation of best practices for content recruitment to academic digital repositories and the conditions for their livelihood

A digital repository is a web accessible database, aimed at preserving the research material of an institution or scientific community. A digital repository serves as a tool for dissemination of research material and can increase the impact of the research by making it freely accessible. Digital repositories are often mentioned as a possible aid in relation to the Open Access debate; how research material should be freely accessible to anyone, anywhere at any time. However, for a digital repository to fully unleash its potential as a crucial component of Open Access, it is reliant on the ability to successfully collect and organize content. To a large extent this involves initiating self-archiving of research material by scientists throughout the academic world. This is not a trivial task, and many current repositories are inadequate in this respect, remaining empty, unvisited shelves. This thesis explores best practices for content recruitment to digital repositories, through the review of literature, and an empirical investigation of practices and experience from Electronic Theses and Dissertations repositories. The motives for self-archiving amongst users of the CERN-Theses Database are also assessed. The thesis concludes that mandatory polices for self-archiving at institutions is to be recommended. Furthermore, this thesis suggests that the practice of self-archiving in institutional repositories should be initiated, rath er than relying on alternative ways of recruiting content (for example archiving by library staff and administrative personnel). The work recommends merging the institutional repository with the institution’s working tools for storing of work in progress and work sharing. Repository administrators must acknowledge the fact that many small repositories internal to various groups or sections may exist throughout an organization, representing a barrier to the adoption of a new, institution wide repository. Additionally, the thesis discusses the purpose of an institutional repository contra a subject repository as well as the appropriate level of co-existence between institutional repositories, subject repositories and journals, both subscription based and Open Access. The thesis argues that each of these entities serve a distinct function within the value chain of academic communication, and are thus suitable for co-existence. However, all stakeholders might benefit from clearer role division, and specialization towards their core functions. Institutional repositories are identified as best suited for recruiting content through mandatory policies for self-archiving, whilst subject repositories (by aggregating subject-related information from institutional repositories and offering extended search capabilities) are the bodies best suited for serving a scientist’s need to find relevant information, as well as the dissemination of research results. Journals provide the much needed function of classification in terms of peer review, and may also offer prestige in terms of academic reputation to a scientist, and based on this analysis might do wise in focusing their business model towards this offering, rather than the dissemination and preservation of knowledge which might be better tended to by other bodies. Finally, the thesis discusses the future role of digital repositories in the context of Open Access, suggesting that we are more likely to achieve Open Access in the short run through mandatory policies for self-archiving in institutional repositories, rather than waiting for journals to find and adapt to viable Open Access business models.