This session will highlight successful strategies at two institutions for gaining participation in institutional repositories. Librarians from Southern Illinois University Carbondale will discuss their experience in designing and implementing an effective marketing program, recruiting content and expanding collections. Librarians from Kansas State University will describe their best practices focusing on the pivotal role of library liaisons and value-added services in ensuring the success of the institutional repository.

1. Digging for Buried Treasure:
Strategies for Promoting
Institutional Repositories
TARA BAILLARGEON
BETH TURTLE
ER&L
February 2, 2010

2. Digging for Buried Treasure: Strategies for
Promoting Institutional Repositories
“Libraries cannot afford to hide behind technology by
creating passive services that emphasize access over
real contact with real researchers” - Stuart Basefsky

3. Background
 K-State’s Repository Services Team (RST)
 Led a pilot project to establish a model for a sustainable
institutional repository (IR)
 Kansas State Research Exchange (K-REx)
 Comprised of 3 liaison librarians, K-REx
Coordinator, cataloger, and systems analyst from Digital
Initiatives Department.

5. Importance of Liaisons
 In the midst of a paradigm shift among faculty
 Target influential faculty
 Liaisons know the “hook”
 College of Engineering & H Index
 Success stories

7. Importance of Liaisons
 Becoming more integrated into faculty workflows
 Collaborating on grants, co-writing papers, contributing to
curriculum development, and even voting on departmental
issues

8. Reorganizing
 Content Management/Scholarly Communication Division
 Scholarly Communications and Publishing Dept.
 Identify value added services
 Graduate/Faculty Services Department
 Work closely with Scholarly Communications and
Publishing Dept.
 Identify needed value-added services

9. Value-Added Services
 Campus Research Distribution Strategies
 “Universities must shift from a passive role in research
distribution to an active one” (David Shulenburger, Assoc of
Public & Land Grant Universities)
 IRs are one part of these strategies
 Value Added Services are another

10. Must reflect mission and benefits to…
The Institution Faculty & Students

11. Strategies Address
 Institutions want to increase
impact, visibility, prestige, funding
 Faculty want
 Help with workflows
 Share teaching materials
 Identify campus collaborators
 Promote research labs
 Store & deposit research data
 To be found, used and cited
(Maness, Miaskiewicz, Sumner. D-Lib Magazine, 2008 and Foster, Gibbons, D-Lib
Magazine, Jan 2005)

12. Reinvent your IR - focus on Services
• Services expand the narrow focus of the IR; extract more value
• Give our users what they want

13. Library as Publisher
 Many libraries creating digital imprints
 Partnering with university presses
 Publish journals, monographs, undergraduate
work, conference proceedings

15. Digitization Services
 Consulting on standards, best practices
 Contract to do work in-house
 Work with faculty to digitize collections of
slides, photographs, print materials, etc

18. Data Management/Curation
 “Data is the currency of science, even if
publications are still the currency of tenure. To be
able to exchange data, communicate it, mine
it, reuse it, and review it is essential to scientific
productivity, collaboration, and to discovery itself”
(Gold, 2007)
 Growing demand to include research datasets in IRs
 Life Cycle: Create, Acquire, Archive, Preserve, Share, Reuse
 Librarians incorporated in research process from
beginning to end

21. Other Services
 Copyright/intellectual property services
 Profile research/scholarship and identify
collaborators
 Researcher pages
 E-Portfolios
 Promote undergraduate work
 Document mgt systems & storage of files/versions
for editing

22. References
 Gold, Anna. Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part I. D-Lib
Magazine. Sept/Oct 2007.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september07/gold/09/gold-pt1.html
 Foster, N. and S. Gibbons. Understanding Faculty to Improve Content
Recruitment for Institutional Repositories, D-Lib Magazine. Jan 2005.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january05/foster/01foster.html
 Maness Jack, T. Miaskiewicz, and T. Sumner. Using Personas to
Understand the Needs and Goals of Institutional Repository Users. D-
Lib Magazine, 2008.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september08/maness/09maness.html
 Basefsky, Stuart. The End of Institutional Repositories & the Beginning
of Social Academic Research Service: An Enhanced Role for
Libraries, June 16, 2009. http://works.bepress.com/ir_research/29/

23. Thank you!
For more information, please contact
Tara Baillargeon, Kansas State University
tjb@k-state.edu
Beth Turtle, Kansas State University
bturtle@k-state.edu