Cliff Lynch: We have now had some experience with building repositories and have learned that they do not populate themselves....
[At Caltech] Students are excited. About 2000 thesis and dissertations. Students are embellishing their documents with supplemental materials.
Library staff systematically work to populate. Faculty not very responsive as of yet....
What’s the biggest surprise so far?
CalTech: Ease with which graduate students have grabbed onto the concept and the loading of materials. Do it without agonizing. With the faculty, library is becoming a digital book repository. Opportunities to try things. Faculty are going back to publishers and reclaiming copyright.
UT: Have a number of books available. In some cases have created digital material for publishers. Surprises, the numbers of items in repositories are remarkably similar among similar institutions....
UT and CalTech: Don’t see much interest in browsing.
VTLS: People coming to repositories looking for discovery tools.
Lynch: Lots of talk about researchers needing to submit materials in order to receive grant funding. What impact might this have on repository strategies? Or whether you are positioning yourselves with the faculty as a service for meeting this need?
CalTech: Faculty pride themselves in their independence. Have to deal with the money, tie to funding. If agencies do act on this, institutions can harness local facilities to meet need....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/17/2007 01:15:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
