"The Rutgers Open Access Policy: Implementation Planning for Success"

Laura Bowering Mullen and Jane Johnson Otto have self-archived "The Rutgers Open Access Policy: Implementation Planning for Success."

Here's an excerpt:

At Rutgers University, an open access resolution was passed by the University Senate in October, 2012, and was codified in the official Rutgers University Policy Library in October, 2014. All of the work that the authors coordinated to get to the point of passing the policy was only the beginning of making open access a reality at Rutgers. Since the date that the policy has passed, the authors have been leading an implementation effort (using an established timeline) which includes a new web portal for scholarship, as well as developing materials and presentations for various open access policy-focused education and outreach efforts.. . . The authors provide background and a case study to illustrate the implementation efforts underway as Rutgers comes closer to the official date that the policy will go into effect university-wide on Sept. 1, 2015.

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DSpace@MIT Tops 3 Million Downloads

MIT's DSpace@MIT repository has had over 3 million downloads as of the end of April.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Open Access Articles Collection in DSpace@MIT now contains over 16,600 articles, which collectively were downloaded over 90,000 times in April.

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"Dramatic Growth of Open Access 2015 First Quarter"

Heather Morrison has published "Dramatic Growth of Open Access 2015 First Quarter" in The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics.

Here's an excerpt:

OpenDOAR added 129 repositories for a total of 2,857. The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine added close to 3 million documents for a total of over 71 million documents. Another 7,690 authors joined the Social Sciences Research Network for a total of over 275,000 authors.

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"Availability and Accessibility in an Open Access Institutional Repository: A Case Study"

Jongwook Lee et al. have published "Availability and Accessibility in an Open Access Institutional Repository: A Case Study" in Information Research.

Here's an excerpt:

This study explores the extent to which an institutional repository makes papers available and accessible on the open Web by using 170 journal articles housed in DigiNole Commons, the institutional repository at Florida State University. . . .

Overall, the results confirm the contribution of the institutional repository in making papers available and accessible. The results also reveal some impediments to the success of open access, including impediments linked to contractual arrangements between authors and publishers, impediments linked to policies, practices and technologies governing the repository itself, and the low level of faculty participation in the repository.

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COAR Roadmap: Future Directions for Repository Interoperability

COAR has released COAR Roadmap: Future Directions for Repository Interoperability.

Here's an excerpt:

Scholarly communication is undergoing fundamental changes, in particular with new requirements for open access to research outputs, new forms of peer-review, and alternative methods for measuring impact. In parallel, technical developments, especially in communication and interface technologies facilitate bi-directional data exchange across related applications and systems. The aim of this roadmap is to identify important trends and their associated action points in order for the repository community to determine priorities for further investments in interoperability.

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DSpace 5 Released

DuraSpace has released DSpace 5.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

With a new, modern look and feel for every device, the ability to auto-upgrade from older versions of DSpace, to batch import content and more, the release of DSpace 5 offers its far-flung global community of developers and stakeholders an even easier-to-use and more efficient institutional repository solution.

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Debra Hanken Kurtz Named as DuraSpace CEO

Debra Hanken Kurtz has been named as DuraSpace's CEO.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

It brings us great pleasure to announce that the DuraSpace Board of Directors has chosen Debra Hanken Kurtz to serve as the new CEO for the Organization. Kurtz is currently the Executive Director of the Texas Digital Library. She will begin in her new role on February 16, 2015 and establish an office in Austin, Texas to manage DuraSpace business operations.

Kurtz brings key relevant experience and skills to DuraSpace. As Executive Director of the Texas Digital Library, she managed and grew membership, operations, and services. She participates in working and planning groups for DPN and SHARE. At both Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill Libraries, Kurtz provided leadership and direction for digital collections, public websites, and early planning efforts for both libraries' institutional repositories. She was an active partner within the Triangle Research Libraries Network and has been a voice for Kuali OLE, an open-source integrated library system built by and for academic and research libraries. Kurtz's complete background can be found on linkedin.

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Measuring Up: Assessing Use of Digital Repositories and the Resulting Impact Project Gets IMLS Grant

The Measuring Up: Assessing Use of Digital Repositories and the Resulting Impact Project has received an IMLS Grant.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded a $500,000, three-year National Leadership Grant to four partner organizations-the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Montana State University, OCLC Research, and the University of New Mexico-to perform research and recommend best practices that will improve data collection and information sharing for institutional repositories and digitized collections.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Fedora 4 Production Release

The international Fedora repository community and DuraSpace have released the Fedora 4 production release.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This significant release signals the effectiveness of an international and complex community source project in delivering a modern repository platform with features that meet or exceed current use cases in the management of institutional digital assets. Fedora 4 features include vast improvements in scalability, linked data capabilities, research data support, modularity, ease of use and more.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Focusing on Student Research In The Institutional Repository DigitalCommons@USU"

Danielle Barandiaran et al. have published "Focusing on Student Research In The Institutional Repository DigitalCommons@USU" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

Student research is a significant and rapidly growing component of the institutional repository (IR) at Utah State University (USU). A briefing paper prepared for Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS) points to student works as one of nine purposes for an IR.1 It is not uncommon to find undergraduate and graduate theses and dissertations in IRs. In 2013, an analysis of 283 U.S. repositories using the bepress or DSpsace platforms indicated 71% include this type of student research. However, other student research such as posters, presentations, or papers were only found in 38% of these repositories. Utah State University's IR actively solicits student research resulting from research groups and individuals, as well as posters and creative works featured in the university's Student Showcase symposium.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Purdue e-Pubs Repository Tops 8 Million Downloads

The Purdue e-Pubs repository has had over 8 million downloads.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

To date, every college on Purdue's West Lafayette campus has a presence in the repository. Purdue e-Pubs continues to be a central place on campus advancing the impact of scholarship at the global, national and local level. Purdue University Libraries began providing the Purdue e-Pubs service to the campus community in 2006 as a means to openly share research and scholarship in a stable, open, and citable format.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Open Access Infrastructure: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go"

Cynthia Hodgson has published "Open Access Infrastructure: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go" in Information Standards Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

There's no doubt that open access is here to stay, but the underlying infrastructure needed to support and sustain OA publishing is still very much in its development stages. This article, through a series of interviews with experts in the OA arena, highlights some of the major areas of infrastructure that are needed including institutional policies, compliance tracking and reporting, publishing tools, new economic models and licensing, and sustainability.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"The Development of Open Access Repositories in the Asia-Oceania Region: A Case Study of Three Institutions"

IFLA has released "The Development of Open Access Repositories in the Asia-Oceania Region: A Case Study of Three Institutions."

Here's an excerpt:

In recent years, open access models of publishing have transcended traditional modes thus enabling freer access to research. This paper takes a trans-regional approach to examining open access publishing in the Asia and Oceania region focusing on three institutions—Charles Darwin University in Australia, University of Hong Kong, and University of Malaya in Malaysia—reflecting on how each is rising, in its own individual way, to meet the range of challenges that its research communities are facing. Specifically, it focuses on open access and institutional repository development, and traces their development at each of the aforementioned institutions.

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"A Current Snapshot of Institutional Repositories: Growth Rate, Disciplinary Content and Faculty Contributions"

Ellen Dubinsky has published "A Current Snapshot of Institutional Repositories: Growth Rate, Disciplinary Content and Faculty Contributions" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

Mean and median growth rates of IRs have increased since measured in 2007, with variance depending upon size and type of academic institution and age of the IR. Disciplinary content in IRs is unevenly distributed, with the Sciences predominantly represented. IR administrators remain actively involved in the submission process and in the promotion of their IRs. Personal contact with individuals or groups of faculty is the most used and successful interaction method.

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"Degrees of Openness: Access Restrictions in Institutional Repositories"

Hélène Prostand Joachim Schöpfel have published "Degrees of Openness: Access Restrictions in Institutional Repositories" in D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

Institutional repositories, green road and backbone of the open access movement, contain a growing number of items that are metadata without full text, metadata with full text only for authorized users, and items that are under embargo or that are restricted to on-campus access. This paper provides a short overview of relevant literature and presents empirical results from a survey of 25 institutional repositories that contain more than 2 million items. The intention is to evaluate their degree of openness with specific attention to different categories of documents (journal articles, books and book chapters, conference communications, electronic theses and dissertations, reports, working papers) and thus to contribute to a better understanding of their features and dynamics. We address the underlying question of whether this lack of openness is temporary due to the transition from traditional scientific communication to open access infrastructures and services, or here to stay, as a basic feature of the new and complex cohabitation of institutional repositories and commercial publishing.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Liberating the Publications of a Distinguished Scholar: A Pilot Project"

Julie Kelly has published "Liberating the Publications of a Distinguished Scholar: A Pilot Project" in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Many distinguished scholars published the primary corpus of their work before the advent of online journals, which makes it more challenging to access. Upon being approached by a distinguished Emeritus Professor seeking advice about getting his work posted online, librarians at the University of Minnesota worked to gain copyright permissions to scan and upload older works to the University's Digital Conservancy (UDC). This project then uniquely took the process one step further, using the sharing option of RefWorks to make these works accessible to the widest possible audience while concurrently offering the sophisticated functionality of a citation manager. With open access repositories gaining acceptance as an authoritative long-term venue for making resources available online, including older content that can be digitized, the methods developed in this pilot project could easily be followed by others, thus greatly increasing access to older literature from distinguished scholars.

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"The Dark Side of Open Access in Google and Google Scholar: The Case of Latin-American Repositories"

Enrique Orduña-Malea et al. have self-archived "The Dark Side of Open Access in Google and Google Scholar: The Case of Latin-American Repositories."

Here's an excerpt:

The main objective of this study is to ascertain the presence and visibility of Latin American repositories in Google and Google Scholar through the application of page count and visibility indicators. For a sample of 137 repositories, the results indicate that the indexing ratio is low in Google, and virtually nonexistent in Google Scholar; they also indicate a complete lack of correspondence between the repository records and the data produced by these two search tools. These results are mainly attributable to limitations arising from the use of description schemas that are incompatible with Google Scholar (repository design) and the reliability of web indicators (search engines). We conclude that neither Google nor Google Scholar accurately represent the actual size of open access content published by Latin American repositories; this may indicate a non-indexed, hidden side to open access, which could be limiting the dissemination and consumption of open access scholarly literature.

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"Cultivating Scholarship: The Role of Institutional Repositories in Health Sciences Libraries" Lisa A. Palmer

Lisa A. Palmer has self-archived "Cultivating Scholarship: The Role of Institutional Repositories in Health Sciences Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

The early promise of institutional repositories is beginning to bear fruit. Medical libraries with institutional repositories, like other academic libraries, have found that their repositories support new ways of engaging with researchers and meeting the challenges posed by the transformation in scholarly communication over the past decade exemplified by open access, the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy, campus-based publishing, and the sharing of research data. Institutional repositories can grow and thrive in academic health sciences libraries and be a vital component in the provision of library services to faculty, researchers, staff, and students.

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"Student Embargoes within Institutional Repositories: Faculty Early Transparency Concerns"

David Stern has published "Student Embargoes within Institutional Repositories: Faculty Early Transparency Concerns" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

Libraries encourage students to utilize Institutional Repositories (IRs) to house e-portfolios that demonstrate their skills and experiences. This is especially important for students when applying for jobs and admission into graduate schools. However, within the academic sphere there are legitimate reasons why some faculty-student collaboration efforts should not be documented and openly shared in institutional repositories. The need for the protection of ideas and processes prior to faculty publication can be in direct conflict with the intention for institutional repositories to promote the excellent efforts of students. This is certainly true in laboratory situations where details of experiments and research areas are guarded for the lifetime of the exploration process. Librarians must work with others to develop guidelines and educational programs that prepare all stakeholders for these new information release considerations. One outcome of such deliberations could be the development of mutually beneficial publication guidelines which protect sensitive details of research yet allow students to submit selective research documentation into an IR. The other extreme, with no agreed upon partial embargo scenarios, could result in the removal of students from sensitive collaborations. Given the need for scientific laboratories to utilize student workers, and the benefit of real research experiences for students, the academy must find a balanced solution to this inherent conflict situation.

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University of California Selects Symplectic as Publication Harvesting System Vendor

The University of California has selected Symplectic as the vendor for a publication harvesting system.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The California Digital Library (CDL), in conjunction with University of California campus partners, has chosen Symplectic as the vendor to implement a publication harvesting system in support of the UC Open Access Policy, passed by the Academic Senate in July 2013.

Symplectic's flagship product, Elements, will form the basis of a research information management system intended to simplify participation in UC's OA Policy by providing an efficient method for faculty to deposit their research into eScholarship, UC's institutional repository. This system holds great promise for dramatically increasing the rate of deposit of faculty publications in accordance with the policy.

With a robust set of features that address the specific requirements of the UC OA Policy and the needs of UC authors, Elements will closely monitor publication sources, including public and licensed publication indexes, for any new materials published by UC authors. Once a new publication is detected in the indexes, the system will collect as much information about that publication as possible and contact the author(s) by email for confirmation and manuscript upload. Author-approved publications will then be automatically submitted to eScholarship, where they will be openly available to the public.

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DuraSpace Launches DSpaceDirect

DuraSpace has launched DSpaceDirect.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Today the DuraSpace organization is pleased to announce the public launch of DSpaceDirect—the only hosted repository solution for low-cost discovery, access, archiving, and preservation. DSpaceDirect is now available with convenient features that include fast start-up, you-pick customization, no-cost upgrades, content preservation options, anytime data access and all-the-time data control—all at a price that puts solutions for long-term access to digital scholarly assets within reach of institutions of any size. . . .

Built on DSpace, the most widely-used repository application in the world with more than 1,500 installed instances, DSpaceDirect was inspired by the idea that the past creates the future as each generation builds knowledge on the scholarship that came before. DSpaceDirect is a hosted DSpace repository service that allows institutions of any size to afford to keep their digital content safe and accessible over time. Small institutions are able to get a repository up and running right away that can be made available to patrons as well as to new users worldwide. Users say that the DSpaceDirect easy start-up accelerates discussions about digital content stewardship and preservation best practices at their institutions.

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"A DSpace Mobile Theme for San Diego State University"

Mini Vamadevan Pillai has self-archived "A DSpace Mobile Theme for San Diego State University."

Here's an excerpt:

This thesis is an attempt to install and customize a DSpace mobile theme for San Diego State University. The work also includes development of additional features like adding navigational bars, adding administrative login capabilities, accessing administrative navigational panel via mobile theme. The mobile theme supports other features like search, advanced search, recent submissions, submissions and workflow. With the widespread use of mobile telephony, providing a mobile theme for SDSU DSpace will reach out to faculty and other interested parties.

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"Have Digital Repositories Come of Age? The Views of Library Directors"

David Nicholas et al. have published "Have Digital Repositories Come of Age? The Views of Library Directors" in Webology.

Here's an excerpt:

This survey of approximately 150 repositories assessed the achievements, impact, and success of digital repositories. Results show that while the size and use of repositories has been relatively modest, almost half of all institutions either have, or are planning, a repository mandate requiring deposit and small gains have been made in raising the profile of the library within the institution. Repositories, then, have made a good deal of progress, but they have not quite come of age.

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"Flexible and Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture (FEDORA)"

Sandra Payette and Carl Lagoze have self-archived "Flexible and Extensible Digital Object and Repository Architecture (FEDORA)."

Here's an excerpt:

We describe a digital object and repository architecture for storing and disseminating digital library content. The key features of the architecture are: (1) support for heterogeneous data types; (2) accommodation of new types as they emerge; (3) aggregation of mixed, possibly distributed, data into complex objects; (4) the ability to specify multiple content disseminations of these objects; and (5) the ability to associate rights management schemes with these disseminations. This architecture is being implemented in the context of a broader research project to develop next-generation service modules for a layered digital library architecture.

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