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November 30, 2008
Seven Steps to a Brighter Digital Repository Future
In the November 20 online edition of Library Journal, Andrew Albanese sums up the closing keynote address from the 2008 SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting in Baltimore, MD. David Shulenberger, VP of academic affairs at the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, presented seven steps that would aid university libraries in taking their digital repositories to the next level.
These steps are (as reported by Albanese):
1. Make sure that there is a digital repository available for your university's faculty.
2. Work with administrators to acknowledge the benefits of broadening distribution, and that your university will reap those benefits by using the repository.
3. Initiate discussions involving administration and faculty about current practices and intellectual property policies--in other words, "emulate Harvard."
4. Support efforts to spread public access policies like those of NIH to all federal funding agencies and foundations.
5. Work with e campus units, (such as university presses), to support, not oppose, the best interests of their faculty.
6. Work with departments and faculty to develop habits of depositing in the repository.
7. Work with PR units so that the public, donors, and legislators know to look to your institutional repository to find reliable information.
According to Albanese, Shulenberger admits that following these steps will not be easy and that there are many obstacles in the way. He also used this keynote address to publicly speak out against the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) and the America Chemical Society for their support of the Fair Use Copyright in Research Works Act, which Shulenberger claims will "make building digital repositories far more difficult." Schulenberger emphasized the need for all organizations, including university presses and libraries, to work together for everyone's common benefit. Shulenberger points out that digital repositories can reshape the face of university publishing and provide "real access" to information.
Click here to read the complete article.
Albanese, Andrew. "At SPARC Digital Repository Meeting, Shulenberger Calls Out AAUP, ACS." Library Journal Academic Newswire (November 20, 2008).
-posted by Melissa Powers, IS 560 Collection Development
Posted by colldev at November 30, 2008 12:45 PM