The Emergence of Institutional Repositories: A Conceptual Understanding of Key Issues through Review of Literature

Authors

O. P. Saini, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, U.P. (India)Follow

Date of this Version

Fall 3-3-2018

Document Type

Article

Citation

The Institutional Repositories are playing a crucial role in the academic institutions of higher education of imparting knowledge and visibility of intellectual work. The Libraries are forced to implement the IRs to showcase the faculty publications through the mandate of respective government. It is a challenge for the library professionals to create and manage the repositories to provide free access to its users.

Comments

Institutional Repositories are need of the hour in the age of high cost of publishing and journal subscription that provides an alternative to the research scholars.

Abstract

It is the responsibility of the libraries to keep update its users by incorporating different technologies or tricks among the services offered to users. The libraries are managing diversified collection in both electronic and physical formats including the theses and dissertations awarded by their respective parent institutes in physical form. The academic libraries are directed by the Indian government through a mandate to protect and preserve the theses and dissertation in electronic form and provide access to the public domain. Institutional Repositories (IRs) have the perspective to store any amount of information electronically. Therefore, many of the academic libraries are forced to develop their IRs. The present paper is an attempt to find out the answers to some of the burning questions related to creation and management of IRs by the libraries. The library managers are sometimes confused when they asked to install the IRs Software, design the IR policy, motivate faculty, prepare budget estimates for IRs, etc.

The current study covered various theoretic aspects related to the creation and maintenance of an IR in an academic institution. The study is based on the review of available literature and analysis focused various aspects of motivations, cost factors and software requirement and its global perspectives for the creation of Institutional Repositories. The paper also discusses the role of IRs in Scholarly Communication. Finally, it highlights the barriers for IRs in an academic environment appeared in the repository literature.