OAI compliant institutional repositories and the role of library staff

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractThe role of librarians in the development and promotion of institutional repositories is discussed. It is presented as a continuation of their existing functions of acquiring, organising and making readily available the resources needed by academic staff and students. Library staff are collaborating with IT staff and academics to disseminate scholarly material and learning objects emanating from their institutions. The Open Archives Initiative and its Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, which provide the technical structure to support the repositories and enable their interoperability for searching purposes, are discussed. The benefits to institutions and their staffs are also reported. The skills needed by library staff are outlined, as well as the pitfalls and problems they may face in persuading academic staff of the virtues of institutional repositories. Electronic access

New Roles, New Responsibilities: Examining Training Needs of Repository Staff

“…Academic library staff have traditionally acquired, organized, and disseminated scholarly information. Therefore, it has been a logical step that institutional libraries would take the lead in managing research output through repositories (Horwood, 2004). An Australian study by Henty (2007) revealed that "the open access origin of many repositories has led to responsibility for the repository being held by the library in all but one of the universities surveyed."…”

Institutional repositories: review and an information systems perspective

“…It has been suggested that the establishment of IR should be the role of the library as it complements the already established roles of libraries in providing access to scholarly material and information management (Bosc and Harnad, 2005;Horwood, et al, 2003), and indeed in many organisations this is so. In some cases repositories are restricted to research output, and in others they include other intellectual capital that belongs to the institution, such as teaching and learning materials (Horwood, et al, 2003).…”

“…In some cases repositories are restricted to research output, and in others they include other intellectual capital that belongs to the institution, such as teaching and learning materials (Horwood, et al, 2003).…”

Are African libraries active participants in today's knowledge and information society?

“…Thus, libraries' changing role is to participate in scholarly communication by supporting electronic scholarly knowledge products and also provide and organise digital content through institutional repositories. There is evidence, for example, in Australia (Horwood et al 2004) and also in South Africa, where such initiatives focusing on the role of libraries in the development of institutional repositories and the benefits arising from the changing functions of libraries (including technical requirements) are represented. OAI has many advantages stemming from its ability to increase relevancy, use, recognition, advocacy and promotion, accountability, visibility (Onyancha 2007a) and access in modern times.…”