An institutional repository (IR) is a set of services for storing and making available digital research materials created by an institution and its community. The National Library of New Zealand set up a steering group and expert working party with representatives from across the research sector to carry out a feasibility study and recommend actions for a national institutional repositories framework for New Zealand's research outputs....Repositories support the open access goal of transforming scholarly communication by making it easier for researchers to find and share the results of research, through free and unrestricted on-line availability....Various factors have led policy-makers and research institutions in other countries to establish repositories; for example...They want to increase research impact and consider that publicly funded research should be publicly accessible. Placing copies of research outputs in an open access institutional repository lowers the barriers to, and cost of, access....Institutional research repositories can create positive outcomes for all interested groups. Authors gain visibility; information seekers find research more easily; institutions raise their research profile; and funders see wider research dissemination. To achieve an active and sustainable network of institutional research repositories in New Zealand requires suitable repository software installed in, or available to, all New Zealand research institutions, supporting on-line availability of most published and unpublished research outputs....[Five recommendations for bringing about "cultural change" and filling the repositories:] [1] Support a national framework. The distributed repository architecture enables local institutional decision-making while facilitating the emergence of national services which join up the local collections. [2] Create incentives for authors to deposit their works. This appears to be the biggest issue for an institution to consider, as the value of a research repository depends on the number of authors contributing to it. [3] Link to the PBRF (performance-based research funding) process. There are 2 distinct linkages to consider between institutional research repositories and PBRF --at a policy level and at an operational level. [4] Build repository management capability. All projects investigated have highlighted resource constraints as a major issue. Implementation involves policy makers, library staff, and IT staff, as
well as academic staff. [5] Copyright must allow open access deposit. Authors are properly worried about infringing agreed copyright arrangements with publishers and institutions need to help them comply with publishers' agreements.
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.
