Accessibility in Institutional Repositories

Authors

Laura Waugh, Texas State University
Colleen Lyon, University of Texas at Austin
Abigail Shelton, University of Notre Dame
Kristi Park, Texas Digital Library
William Hicks, University of North Texas
Nerissa Lindsey, San Diego State University

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

8-2020

Citation

Also available at https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/12389.

Comments

Copyright 2020, the authors. Open access material. License: CC-BY.

Abstract

Purpose

Institutional repositories (IRs) are widely used for archiving, preserving, and disseminating scholarly works and making them available on the web. Much of the research and development in IRs has focused on platforms, workflows, and policies for adding content. In this study, the focus is to gauge practices to ensure accessibility of the digital content made available in IRs.

The purpose of this study is to:

1. Understand the current landscape of accessibility practices in institutional repositories in academic libraries.

2. Identify the average level of content accessibility implemented in institutional repositories in academic libraries.

For the purpose of this study, we have focused on the digital content collected in institutional repositories and workflows at academic libraries, rather than the websites and software platforms. The results of this study will establish a baseline measurement of current accessibility practices for IRs at academic libraries, and the potential for a longitudinal study of emerging best practices and standards.

Anonymized data from our survey is available in the Texas Data Repository, https://doi.org/10.18738/T8/LUGYPO.