Dan Coughlin
Head, Libraries Strategic Technologies
Penn State University
Cynthia Hudson-Vitale
Director of Scholars & Scholarship
Association of Research Libraries
Big data stewardship, granular versioning, a simplified technical stack/platform for developers, curation policies and an enhanced curation interface, and data retention schedules are just a few of the wicked challenges that Penn State Libraries undertook in a most recent institutional repository (IR) redesign and policy rewrite. As IRs have become critical components of scholarly infrastructure, they are increasingly tasked with handling more complex objects. In addition to meeting and supporting open access policy requirements for articles, they have become trusted platforms for stewarding large amounts of research data, code, digitized maps, open access monographs, and other research outputs created on academic campuses, often in accordance with funder, journal, and institutional policies. As their centrality to the institution has grown, reinvestments to the IR technical infrastructure and policies that govern its use are key to ensuring its continued success. This presentation will provide an overview of the redesign and resulting IR platform at Penn State Libraries, contextualizing the modifications in a larger discussion around meeting evolving needs for users and library developers and curators.
