[Dspace-general] Question for the Librarians

[Jim Ottaviani]

Hi Shawna,

Like Sara, I don't frame use of institutional repositories as being part 
of an open access movement, or as a response to a push towards mandatory 
deposit. Instead, we talk about what faculty want to accomplish with their 
work, and how best to do so.

In other words, we talk about how Deep Blue (the name of our DSpace 
installation/IR) is a way to help achieve their scholarly communication 
goals: widest possible access, long-term preservation, and maybe even 
providing peers the "director's cut" of their research. If those are 
important, and they almost always are, we have common ground with faculty.

Mandatory deposit does come up, especially when the context is medical 
research and the NIH grant process. So often the discussion ends up 
talking about the open access...but not by name. Here again, we talk about 
meeting the goals (getting the grant, for example) and not about reacting 
to potential legislation or being part of a movement.

At the end of the meeting faculty may not be sold on the idea that Deep 
Blue will give them what they want, but with this approach everybody 
seems to get the basic idea. And at the very least they know that this 
isn't a zero-sum game, with us trying to undermine the peer review 
process, so nobody feels threatened.

Jim

____________________________________
Jim Ottaviani
+1 734-763-4835
Coordinator, Deep Blue
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu
University of Michigan Library

        Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
           --Juvenal, Satires VI, 347