Institutional Repositories Part One: Project Overviews and Organizational Issues

Joseph Branin
Director of Libraries
Ohio State University

MacKenzie Smith
Associate Director for Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thornton Staples
Director of Research and Development, Alderman Library
University of Virginia

Eric Van de Velde
Director of Library and Information Technology
California Institute of Technology

Institutional repository initiatives attempt to capture, structure, make accessible, and preserve a variety of digital products of institutional intellectual productivity, such as e-prints, datasets that underlie published research results, electronic theses and dissertations, large image collections, and courseware. Undertaking an institutional repository project requires developing a vision, defining the scope of the project, choosing technologies, and promoting the initiative to potential contributors. At this point in time, institutional repository projects are “works in progress.” Four institutions with leading edge implementations of institutional repositories will describe their prjoejcts and some key orgnaizational issues in this session. A subsequent session will cover functionality and technical issues.