Repository Partnerships Faculty Or Avoiding the Empty Institutional

Repository Partnerships & Faculty Or, Avoiding the "Empty" Institutional Repository: Getting Faculty Participation in Your IR 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007

Definition In 2003, Clifford Lynch wrote: “[A] university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 2

Why you’re here… …and why IR’s are an appropriate new activity for libraries. Do these concepts sound familiar? – Collection – Organization – Categorization – Sharing, providing access – Preservation 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 3

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IR’s and Libraries What’s different is… Instead of collecting from the outside for inside use – You’re trying to collect from the inside for outside use. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 5

IRs and Librarians DSpace, developed by HP and MIT, made available 2002 DSpace source code downloaded ~45, 000 times since then 150 active installations in 30 countries Librarians definitely embraced this concept. . . 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 6

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IRs and Librarians (2) It seemed like such an obviously wonderful idea that we – and most other places, according to a recent ARL survey 1 – seriously underestimated the need for staffing. Ooops. But on to the other players: 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 8

IRs and Faculty NOT very interested! The median total number of items is less than 1, 000 for each entire DSpace installation. Yes, there are some outliers – But over and over, the message you hear is: “recruiting content is difficult” and “faculty usually aren’t interested” WHY NOT? 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 9

Studying faculty We applied “Work Practice” study methods to faculty – In Work Practice studies, a social scientist uses ethnographic methods to study users’ actual work activities and habits. – How it happened here: • Detailed observations in 5 departments, telephone interviews with several more • 6 core team members, 5 auxiliary members • 25 videotaped interviews/observations of faculty 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 10

Work Practice Study results 1 Faculty want to: – Work with co-authors – Keep track of different versions of the same document – Work from different computers, locations; Mac/PC – Organize their materials according to their own scheme – Keep up in their fields 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 11

Work Practice Study results 2 Faculty also want to: – Make their work available to others – Control ownership, security, and access – Have easy access to other people’s work – Ensure that documents are persistently viewable or usable – Have someone else take care of servers & digital tools 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 12

Work Practice Study results 3 Finally, faculty want… – To be sure not to violate copyright issues – Keep everything related to computers easy & flawless – Reduce chaos or at least not add to it – Not be any busier! 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 13

Overall… “Faculty members think in terms of reading, researching, writing, and disseminating. They think about the specifics of their research area, …” The most important thing is to be found, used, and cited. There is no attraction, per se, of an IR to a faculty member. (Foster & Gibbons, 2005) 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 14

Bottom Line… Faculty: It’s All about Me. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 15

Poll Pause Does this sound like your faculty? 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 16

What could we do? We could personalize the IR: – Researcher Pages: Focus on the individual faculty member Pull all their work together if spread out thru the IR Make links to outside materials, CV Organize work according to their own scheme Very easy to do, no additional software or special knowledge required 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 17

And demonstrate value The Stats Counters – providing quantifiable evidence of use… and thus potential citations. Our mantra: GET SEEN – GET CITED! 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 18

Pause to go live Let’s go see what these things look like: UR Research home: https: //urresearch. rochester. edu Researcher Pages: Charles Phelps Robert Westbrook Jeremy Greenwood 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 19

Other things we learned Use the right language! Original promotional language (wrong): – – – 04/18/07 Institutional repository Support for variety of formats Digital preservation Control who has access* (this was right) Metadata Open source software Computers in Libraries 2007 20

A better “pitch” Makes their work easily accessible to others, and findable via Google/Google Scholar Give out links to their work rather than spending time finding files, sending attachments (and the links will always work) Retain ownership of their work & control who sees it Preserves digital items far into the future, safe from loss or damage No need to maintain a server or worry about 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 21 backups

And do it over, and over… It takes a LOT of iterations of the message. They say “in the fight between the rock and the river, the river wins. ” Be the river. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 22

One by one We found presentations to groups such as faculty meetings weren’t very effective. What seems to work is one-on-one encounters where some kind of personal relationship exists. Also check faculty and research center websites. See if your faculty have articles in open access journals. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 are probably not 23 Fancy, expensive brochures

Not just faculty The next generation of faculty: grad students Institutional documents (administrative, “campus memory, ” … ) Excellent undergraduate work (senior theses, etc. ) Approach the PR or administrative staff of specialized research centers (if any) 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 24

Additional low hanging fruit… 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 25

…er, Material types to focus on Unedited, longer version of articles, chapters – the “Director’s Cut” Parts or supporting materials that had to be cut for space, format reasons (data sets, images, multimedia) Papers from local workshops that need a home Special projects, collections unique to your institution 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 of “grey 26 Departments with a tradition

Be ready for serendipity Always be ready with elements of the pitch – Someone who complains about a broken link – Or complaining about something happening to their computer – Check the hit counters yourself and let the author know – Have rehearsed Google/OAIster searches 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 27 ready to show IR things turn up in

Relax! Avoid “bureaucrazy” (1) Yes, you need some policies - but make them as simple and open as possible, avoid jargon. Try to position the policies to support working with individuals rather than departments. Don’t hesitate to do whatever needs to be done: request permissions, scan, 04/18/07 Computers 2007 28 convert, deposit forin Libraries people…

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Avoid “bureacrazy” (2) URLs for our original and current policies are on the selected readings list. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 30

One last word… (well, two) Take time to think about how you will define success… – Number of items by such and such a time? – Number of different units represented? – Range of materials? – Other? …and give yourself Time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is an IR. 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 31

Your turn: How many of you are running IR’s? How is the collection of content going? Are there success or horror stories anyone would like to share? 04/18/07 Computers in Libraries 2007 32

Thank you so much! I wish you all the best in your IR efforts. We’re all in this together! 04/18/07 Suzanne Bell, sbell@library. rochester. edu Computers in Libraries 2007