Re: Functioning IRs - today's real realities

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 03:43:37 +0000

On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Pippa Smart wrote:

> The requirements of Yale have - probably inevitably - led to the large cost
> of implementation as stated by Ann Okerson, and for them there were
> probably no turnkey solutions - I am sure they would have considered ePrints.
>
> Another interesting cost comparison of launching and operating these
> repositories has been collated by Rebecca Kemp from University of North
> Carolina. It gives costs from 10 libraries from the USA, UK, Canada and
> Ireland, and shows a range from $6k to $1million for setup.
> <http://library.uncwil.edu/Faculty/kempr/listserv-summary-IR-open-source-costs.xls>http://library.uncwil.edu/Faculty/kempr/listserv-summary-IR-open-source-costs.xls

We in part create today's realities. And among those realities is the fact
that universities are continuing -- daily, weekly, monthly, cumulatively
-- to lose 25%-250%+ percent of their potential research impact, simply
because they are not yet self-archiving their research output. Alongside
pursuing the less urgent and more diffuse, open-ended and pricey
agenda of long-term digital curation, would it not make sense to *also*
adopt, in parallel, a low-end "turnkey" solution aimed specifically at
stanching the needless chronic loss of research impact? Paradoxically,
the negligible ($6K) investment and focussed target can net a lot more
concrete, immediate and short- and long-term benefit, including research
progress and revenue, than just aimlessly immortalizing bits willy-nilly.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Fri Dec 09 2005 - 03:59:35 GMT

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