Annah Macha MPhil Student Department of Library & Information Science, UCT [email protected]

A/Prof Karin de Jager Centre for Information Literacy, UCT [email protected]

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More institutions establishing IRs in SA

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many documents need to be preserved, managed, & shared

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IRs preserve institution’s intellectual property and increase institution’s visibility and prestige (Prosser, 2003:168)

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2002: national research strategy published

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renewal in information services sector

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SARIS Project: SA research institutes & university libraries were accessing world research literature at high costs

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Framework for eResearch services to SA research community be created

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eResearch & innovation services be jointly funded projects coordinated at country level

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2007: ASSAf inaugural meeting: beginning of open access movement in SA (Gray)

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Initiatives were not successful

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eIFL & the Mellon Foundation provided funding for starting up IR projects in SA.

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Mss & A of the UCT Libraries began digitizing selected material in 2001 (Dunlop and Hart: 2005)

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Digitization projects based on the San photographs (1910 and the late 1920s)

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San collection listed by UNESCO:documentary heritage of international importance

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Other projects at UCT, instigated by individual departments e.g. Computer Science- 2003, Faculty of Law- 2005

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Interviews showed digital initiatives at UCT conducted at small scale: cost and staff resources

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IR needed a budget for staffing, hardware and software and trained members of staff

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From around 2006, repeated requests for University to budget for the start of an IR

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In 2009, UCT Libraries obtained funding from the Carnegie Corporation - with WITS & UKZN $2.5 million over 3yrs

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New digitization unit was established, in charge of developing the IR

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showcase UCT’s research

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The UCT repository at present consists of: a.

b.

c.

digital collections-1891 finding aids- 866 and theses and dissertations-1099

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UP selected for comparative analysis with UCT: its well established. At present UP IR consists of 6621 materials

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UP started as a pilot project in 2000 by:

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2002 repository contained 39 theses and 26 dissertations

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2003: policy adopted by Senate to make submission compulsory

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based on the success UPeTD, in 2006 UP established UPSpace

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UP also has OpenUP: a sub-collection of the larger UPSpace collection (Pienaar and Van Deventer: 2008)

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Identify important role players

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Address issues of resources

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Evaluate software that would make the IR an Open Access Initiative

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Establish policy for the IR

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Restructure library to accommodate change

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Get a license

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HOD Information Science, subject librarians, metadata specialist, a digitization specialist and IT staff”

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Needs analysis: survey

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open source software – ETD-db

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Head of Digitization Unit

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small-scale project in 2001

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Proprietary software DigiTool would integrate with UCT online catalogue Aleph and UCT portal, PRIMO by Ex Libris

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At UP the IR governed by Senate approved policy

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new roles and responsibilities for staff

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UP registered with the ROAR, openDOAR, Google Scholar & DSpace

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UCT created a policy for the submission of print & electronic theses

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UCT is restructuring roles and responsibilities of its staff

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UCT has to register with open access harvesters

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1.

2.

Content Content recruitment is key: the core of the IR both born-digital and older repurposed digital materials “the larger the critical mass of documents in an IR, the more it will facilitate output measures.” (Westell, 2006: 216 ) Use number of users, type of content used and nature of use (Harnad and McGovern: 2009).

Webometrics downloaded how many hits have been made from the repository and how many articles have been

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Submission “repository deposit activity measures” (Thomas: 2007)

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Number of submissions Frequency of submissions

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Type of submitter Participation of key stakeholders

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Support

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Constituent support Financial support Technical support

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Advocacy

informed awareness-

(Johnson, 2007: 23) “getting the right message to the right people with the tone and content varied by audience”

communication plan for advocacy campaign advocacy strategies addressing authors’ concerns

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Influence providing assistance to other institutions in the country, region and in the world Collaboration encouraged among IRs

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Interoperability capability of a computer hardware or software system to communicate and work effectively with another system in the exchange of data (Reitz: 2006) Interoperability: metadata &format compliance Dublin Core metadata: OAI proposed OAI-PMH standards OAIster and other search engines, Google Scholar can harvest their contents

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Two IRs not similar

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UP firstly ETD; then UPSpace & Open UP

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UCT not focused on ETD alone: Special & Heritage collections

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UCT will in future have ETD repository

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UP: open source, UCT: proprietary software

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UP as a benchmark: success

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Influence

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IRs are important:

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Collect & house

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Preserve & archive research output Enhance visibility & prestige of institution

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