SHERPA: institutional repositories Bill Hubbard SHERPA Project Manager University of Nottingham

SHERPA -  Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access  development partners –Nottingham (lead), Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oxford, Sheffield, Leeds, York, British Library and AHDS  funding: JISC (FAIR programme) and CURL  duration: 3 years, November 2002 – November 2005

Institutional repositories of e-prints  institutional - rather than subject based  repositories - rather than archives  e-prints - rather than e-resources ... linked through OAI-PMH

‘e-prints’  ‘e-prints’ are electronic versions of research papers and other similar output  ‘pre-prints’ (pre-referred papers)  ‘post-prints’ (post-refereed papers)  other material –conference papers, book chapters, reports, etc.  key is subject’s quality control – particularly peer review

Benefits for the researcher  wide dissemination –papers more visible –cited more  rapid dissemination  ease of access  cross-searchable  value added services –hit counts on papers –personalised publications lists –citation analyses

Why “institutional”?  institutions have centralised resources: –to subsidise repository start up –to support repositories with technical / organisational infrastructures –to deal effectively with preservation issues over the long term  an interest in disseminating content  work across subject boundaries to share solutions  natural part of institution’s function ... needs testing in practice...

Benefits for the institution  raising profile and prestige of institution  managing institutional information assets  accreditation / performance management e.g. RAE  long-term cost savings  encourages an institutional sense of identity in intellectual output

Issues  collection policy  preservation  IPR  cultural differences and changes

Collection policy  document type –pre-prints v. post-prints; authors: staff, students, others?  document format –HTML, PDF, Postscript, RTF, ASCII, etc.  submission procedures –mediated / DIY; file formats  metadata quality standards –self-created metadata

Research preservation issues  selection and retention criteria  preservation metadata  preferred formats  life-cycle management  cost models ... one view is that it can all be set aside for now...

IPR  author permission and licensing terms  copyright and copying  compliance with publisher copyright terms

Cultural differences and changes  different subject cultures –pre-print culture e.g. Physics –pre-print averse e.g. Medicine –Require: different policies or different archives?  changing the status quo –advocacy and support

SHERPA project aims  to construct a series of institutional OAI-compliant repositories  to investigate key issues in populating and maintaining e-print collections  to work with service providers to achieve acceptable standards for metadata and the dissemination of the content  to investigate standards-based digital preservation  to provide advice for e-print data providers  to disseminate learning outcomes and advocacy materials

Key points  initial installation of an OAI-compliant e-print repository is relatively straightforward  repositories need collection policies  repositories need to address preservation  cultural change is the biggest challenge  institutions have the resources and position to help - the library can lead