JISC has released Setting Institutional Repositories on the Path to Digital Preservation: Final Project Report from the JISC KeepIt Project.

Here's an excerpt:

Digital preservation starts with detailed knowledge and awareness of your own content. The scope for content of institutional repositories has grown from research papers to presenting data supporting the research, also covering teaching materials, and artistic creativity. Four repositories representing each content type—the exemplars—joined the KeepIt project to investigate how effectively each could support the goals of a general repository: trustworthy storage, and preservation. This final report from the project reveals the results, outcomes and implications of the work.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Institutional Repository Bibliography | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Version four of the Institutional Repository Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship. This selective bibliography presents over 500 articles, books, technical reports, and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding institutional repositories (see the scope note for details). All included works are in English. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

The bibliography has the following sections (all sections have been updated except "3 Multiple-Institution Repositories"):

1 General
2 Country and Regional Surveys
3 Multiple-Institution Repositories
4 Specific Institutional Repositories
5 Digital Preservation
6 Library Issues
7 Metadata
8 Institutional Open Access Mandates and Policies
9 R&D Projects
10 Research Studies
11 Software
12 Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Appendix A. Related Bibliographies
Appendix B. About the Author

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications |

Gareth James Johnson has self-archived "Evaluating Repository Annual Metrics for SCONUL" in the Leicester Research Archive.

Here's an excerpt:

This report is a summarisation of the responses to a recent survey of the UKCoRR membership concerning the use of full-text downloads as a repository performance metric within the SCONUL annual statistical survey. It hopes to present a representative snapshot of the current opinions in this area from repository managers.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Institutional Repository Bibliography |

Merceur Frederic, Le Gall Morgane, Salaun Annick have self-archived "Bibliometrics: A New Feature for Institutional Repositories" in Archimer.

Here's an excerpt:

In addition to its promotion and conservation objectives, Archimer, Ifremer’s institutional repository, offers a wide range of bibliometric tools described in this document.

As early as the recording stage, numerous automatic operations homogenize the information (author’s name, research body, department…), thus proving the quality of the bibliometric analyses.

Now, Archimer enables, among others, the automatic calculation of several indicators defined by Ifremer and the different ministries in charge in the framework of its four-year contract. It also offers various criteria aimed at analysing its document production (eg. distribution of the value of the journals' impact factors, evolution of the number of quotations in other publications, presentation of international collaborations…).

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Institutional Repository Bibliography |

The Association of American Universities is a highly selective nonprofit organization of "leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada" whose US members "award more than one-half of all U.S. doctoral degrees and 55 percent of those in the sciences and engineering."

This post examines whether AAU institutions have operational institutional repositories. Over 80% of the 62 AAU members now have such a repository (see the below list).

Institutions that do not have an institutional repository typically have an extensive digital library of curated digital materials (including works digitized by the library), and they may also have specialized digital repositories, such as departmental digital repositories (e.g., eprints and other digital research materials) or an ETD repository. Such digital libraries and repositories are not included here.

Institutional repositories were identified by OpenDOAR, ROAR, and, in some cases, Google and institutional website searches.

1. Brandeis University, Brandeis Institutional Repository
2. Brown University, Brown Digital Repository
3. California Institute of Technology, CaltechAUTHORS
4. Carnegie Mellon University, Research Showcase
5. Case Western Reserve University, Digital Case
6. Columbia University, Academic Commons
7. Cornell University, eCommons@Cornell
8. Duke University, DukeSpace
9. Georgia Institute of Technology, SMARTech Repository
10. Harvard University, DASH
11. Indiana University, IUScholarWorks
12. The Johns Hopkins University, JScholarship
13. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, DSpace@MIT
14. McGill University, eScholarship@McGill
15. New York University, Faculty Digital Archive
16. The Ohio State University, Knowledge Bank
17. Purdue University, ePubs
18. Rice University, Rice University Digital Scholarship Archive
19. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, RUCore
20. Stanford University, Stanford Digital Repository
21. Stony Brook University-State University of New York, State University of New York Digital Repository
22. Syracuse University, SURFACE
23. Texas A&M University, Texas A&M Digital Repository
24. The University of Arizona, UAiR
25. University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, UB Institutional Repository
26. University of California, Berkeley, eScholarship
27. University of California, Davis, eScholarship
28. University of California, Irvine, eScholarship
29. University of California, Los Angeles, eScholarship
30. University of California, San Diego, eScholarship
31. University of California, Santa Barbara, eScholarship
32. University of Colorado at Boulder
33. University of Florida, IR @ UF
34. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IDEALS
35. The University of Iowa, Iowa Research Online
36. The University of Kansas, KU ScholarWorks
37. University of Maryland, College Park, DRUM
38. University of Michigan, Deep Blue
39. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, digitalconservancy
40. University of Missouri-Columbia, MOspace
41. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Digital Repository
42. University of Oregon, Scholars' Bank
43. University of Pennsylvania, ScholarlyCommons Repository
44. University of Pittsburgh, D-Scholarship@Pitt
45. University of Rochester, UR Research
46. The University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas Digital Repository
47. University of Toronto, T-Space
48. University of Virginia, Libra
49. University of Washington, ResearchWorks
50. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, MINDS@UW
51. Vanderbilt University, DiscoverArchive

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

Miggie Pickton, Debra Morris, Stephanie Meece, Simon Coles, and Steve Hitchcock have published "Preserving Repository Content: Practical Tools for Repository Managers" in the latest issue of the Journal of Digital Information.

Here's an excerpt:

The stated aim of many repositories is to provide permanent open access to their content. However, relatively few repositories have implemented practical action plans towards permanence. Repository managers often lack time and confidence to tackle the important but scary problem of preservation.

Written by, and aimed at, repository managers, this paper describes how the JISC-funded KeepIt project has been bringing together existing preservation tools and services with appropriate training and advice to enable repository managers to formulate practical and achievable preservation plans.

Three elements of the KeepIt project are described:

1. The initial, exploratory phase in which repository managers and a preservation specialist established the current status of each repository and its preservation objectives;
2. The repository-specific KeepIt preservation training course which covered the organisational and financial framework of repository preservation; metadata; the new preservation tools; and issues of trust between repository, users and services;
3. The application of tools and lessons learned from the training course to four exemplar repositories and the impact that this has made.

The paper concludes by recommending practical steps that all repository managers may take to ensure their repositories are preservation-ready.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Institutional Repository Bibliography |

The University of Virginia Library has launched its Libra institutional repository.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Save your work in perpetuity with a new tool called Libra. A joint project between ITC and the University Library System, and requested by the Faculty Senate, Libra allows any employee of the University who produces scholarly works to store their papers, and in the near future, theses and datasets, in a secure location. Libra was developed specifically as a repository for peer-reviewed, scholarly articles, although other works such as books may also be deposited, as long as sufficient rights have been retained by the authors.

Read more about it at "LIBRA: University of Virginia's Hydra-based Fedora Repository for Open Access Materials."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

Cal Poly Library Services has released Institutional Repository Project Summary Report Sept 2007-Sept 2010.

Here's an excerpt:

This final project report to the Provost summarizes the work of the Digital Repository Librarian and Digital Repository Assistant (LAII) during the three-year Provost-funded DigitalCommons@CalPoly service, during Academic Year (AY) 2007-2010. It is based on the subtask and annual reports that have been established during the project. Recommendations for future activities are also included.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

STM has released the "STM Statement on Negotiating Rights for Institutional Repository Postings and Author Rights."

Here's an excerpt:

Recently some advocates for institutional repositories have noted that, in connection with the responsibilities that academic and research libraries may have for coordinating the scholarly output of author-researchers at their institutions, there are efficiencies to be gained in negotiating at an institutional level with journal publishers. . . .

STM publishers are of the view that content license negotiations deal appropriately with questions about the scope of content that will be accessible for each institutional subscriber as well as the scope of usage rights and relative costs for such accessibility and rights. These negotiations are often complex, especially given that in recent years efforts have been made to manage negotiations through procurement processes of different kinds. We hold the view that conflating author rights issues and institutional content licenses serves only to add greater complexity and possible legal uncertainty to such licenses without adding meaningful benefits for authors.

SPARC, SPARC Europe and COAR have issued a "Public Response on Behalf of SPARC, SPARC Europe and COAR Regarding Publishers Self-Deposit Policies."

Here's an excerpt:

We have recently noted that some journal publishers have sought to negotiate individually with universities and research institutes, seeking to increase embargo periods for authors depositing pre-prints of their articles into repositories, and requesting embargo periods that go beyond what is already stated in the publishers' own policies.

We strongly urge institutions not to enter into individual agreements with publishers that supersede the existing policies of the publisher or any previous licensing agreements.

We also call on the publishers not to further hinder the deposit—and accessibility—of pre-prints with additional restrictions, regulations and policies. Proliferation of this practice will result in an environment that is confusing to navigate for end users, and increasingly difficult for individual institutions to effectively maintain.

Read more about it at "Double Talk."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

The Research Information Network has released Heading for the Open Road: Costs And Benefits of Transitions in Scholarly Communications (annexes).

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This new report investigates the drivers, costs and benefits of potential ways to increase access to scholarly journals. It identifies five different routes for achieving that end over the next five years, and compares and evaluates the benefits as well as the costs and risks for the UK.

The report suggests that policymakers who are seeking to promote increases in access should encourage the use of existing subject and institutional repositories, but avoid pushing for reductions in embargo periods, which might put at risk the sustainability of the underlying scholarly publishing system. They should also promote and facilitate a transition to open access publishing (Gold open access) while seeking to ensure that the average level of charges for publication does not exceed c.£2000; that the rate in the UK of open access publication is broadly in step with the rate in the rest of the world; and that total payments to journal publishers from UK universities and their funders do not rise as a consequence.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

Mike Beazley has published "Eprints Institutional Repository Software: A Review" in latest issue of Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research.

Here's an excerpt:

Setting up an institutional repository (IR) can be a daunting task. There are many software packages out there, some commercial, some open source, all of which offer different features and functionality. This article will provide some thoughts about one of these software packages: Eprints. Eprints is open-source, and the software is easy to modify. This presents clear advantages for institutions will smaller budgets and that have programmers on staff.

Installation and initial configuration are straightforward and once the IR is up and running, users can easily upload documents by filling out a simple web form. Eprints is an excellent choice for any institution looking to get an IR up and running quickly and easily, although it is less clear that an institution with an existing IR based on another software package should migrate to Eprints.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

There are now over 1,000 known DSpace repositories.

Here's an excerpt from the DuraSpace announcement

The DSpace user community has reached a major milestone. There are now over 1000 known instances of DSpace installed in almost 100 different countries worldwide. DSpace continues to be the most popular repository solution, with well over a third of the known institutional repositories using the DSpace software. Each month over the last year, the DSpace registry has added between 20-30 new repositories. Check out "Who's Using DSpace" to see the complete list. . . .

Over the last year, DSpace repositories were launched in 25 new countries, including: Bulgaria, Cameroon, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malawi, Malta, Mozambique, Nepal, Poland, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Tansania, Uruguay, Zambia.

The countries that had the largest increase in the number of DSpace repositories were: Japan +33, Taiwan +28, USA +16, Spain +13, Brazil +12, Ecuador +11, China +10, Portugal +10, Ukraine +10, South Africa +8, Thailand +7, Vietnam +7.

Also of interest is the number of highly ranked DSpace repositories listed in the January 2011 edition of the Ranking Web of World Repositories.

Here's an excerpt from the DuraSpace announcement

In overall, DSpace’s presence among the top 100 listed repositories has grown tremendously, with 51 repositories listed now, compared to 41 in July 2010, 45 in January 2010 and 43 in January 2009.

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