Re: PALS report and conference on Institutional Repositories

From: Gherman, Paul M <paul.gherman_at_vanderbilt.edu>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 19:05:41 +0000

Institutional Repositories (IR's) are gaining good traction at many
research universities, and I think it is time for the Open Access
enthusiasts to take note and begin thinking about how both movements
might work together. There has been a lot of discussion about how Open
Access can support long-term preservation and access based on authors
fees. IR's such as DSpace are designed first as preservation mediums,
and it seems we ought to consider how we can use IR's as part of
the architecture of a system of Open Access.

I find faculty at Vanderbilt are far more interested in IR's than
open access, and it may be a way to get their attention and buy-in
to open access if they see a link to their home institution.

We need to make sure the two movements do not go down separate
tracks.

--On Thursday, February 26, 2004 12:00 PM +0000 Steve Hitchcock
<sh94r_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> wrote:

> Mark Ware's report on institutional repositories is a balanced,
> thorough and welcome review that has some features not found in
> other reports of this sort.
>
> See full record in Perspectives in Electronic Publishing (short
> review reproduced below)
> http://aims.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pep.nsf/cc4a508424b9c3ff802566dc004e4
> 2ff/5c4d447fc4fdeecf80256e46003c0c0e?OpenDocument
>
> This report doesn't have any dramatic new insights on open
> access, but it is a pretty thorough review of institutional
> repositories (IRs). Surprisingly, given the author's publishing
> background, and that of the report's backers, it is remarkably
> focussed on IRs and, section 9 apart (notwithstanding its brief
> mention PeP), the report doesn't grind any publishing axes.
>
> There is an emphasis on repositories built with DSpace because
> the report largely adopts the DSpace/Cliff Lynch philosophy on
> IRs, that is, they are for storing all the outputs of an
> institution, not just copies of refereed journal papers, or
> eprints. So it doesn't have the benefit of the more focussed
> Harnad analysis of institutional eprint archives to cut through
> most of the issues it raises.
>
> Section 8 is a quantitative analysis of repositories, largely
> based on data and charts from work at Southampton by Tim Brody
> and based on Eprints.org data. This is a welcome (if inadequately
> referenced) and unusual feature to date in reviews such as this.
>
> It's disappointing to see section 8.2 open by stating that
> background research had "produced a list of some 45 IRs", since
> the Metalist of Open Access Eprint Archives would have revealed
> more than this (although for some reason Eprints archives are
> omitted here).
>
> The conclusions seem rather positive for IRs: "The case for the
> benefits to a research organisation of an institutional
> repository providing a set of infrastructural digital services
> including uploading/hosting, organising (metadata), disseminating
> and long-term preservation seems compelling. ... What is far less
> clear is whether IRs will develop large, interoperable
> collections of published literature, as hope the advocates of
> open access."
>
> For those new to the open access phenomenon, and who may be
> puzzled by the lack of coverage of IRs in the currently
> publishing-dominated open access agenda in some forums and news
> services - there are of necessity two complementary paths to open
> access: journal publication and author self-archiving in
> repositories - this report is worthwhile indeed.
>
> Steve Hitchcock
> IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
> University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
> Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3256 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
>
> At 12:57 23/02/04 +0000, Mark Ware wrote:
>> PALS (The Publisher and Library/Learning Solutions working
>> group) has recently published a report (which I authored) on
>> Institutional Repositories. The report is freely available from
>> the PALS website at
>> <http://www.palsgroup.org.uk/>http://www.palsgroup.org.uk/
>> (follow the link for Pathfinder research on web-based
>> repositories ).
>>
>>
>>
>> PALS is running a conference based on this research in London on
>> 24 June 2004 entitled Institutional Repositories and Their
>> Impact on Scholarly Publishing . Details of this are also
>> available on the PALS website (follow the link for PALS
>> Conference 04 etc. ).
>>
>>
>>
>> [About PALS: The Publisher and Library/Learning Solutions (PALS)
>> working group is an ongoing collaboration between UK publishers
>> (represented by the Association of Learned and Professional
>> Society Publishers and the Publishers Association) and further
>> and higher education (represented by JISC). The group aims to
>> foster mutual understanding on topics of interest to both
>> parties, and work collaboratively towards the solution of issues
>> arising from electronic publication. For more see:
>> <http://www.palsgroup.org.uk/>http://www.palsgroup.org.uk/]
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> -Mark Ware
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Director
>> Mark Ware Consulting Ltd
>> 14 Hyland Grove
>> Westbury-on-Trym
>> Bristol BS9 3NR
>> T: +44 (0)117 959 3726
>> E:
>> <mailto:mark_at_markwareconsulting.com>mark_at_markwareconsulting.com
>> W: <http://www.markwareconsulting.com>www.markwareconsulting.com
>>
>>



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Gherman, Paul M
University Librarian
Vanderbilt University
611 General Library Building
419 21 st. Ave South
Nashville, TN 37215
615-322-7120 voice
615-343-8279 fax
Email: paul.gherman_at_Vanderbilt.Edu
Received on Thu Mar 04 2004 - 19:05:41 GMT

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