[Dspace-general] Institutional Repositories vs Subject/Central Repositories

[Stevan Harnad]

Beth Tillinghast wrote on the DSpace list:

> I have just run into my first case where I am finding our IR in
> competition with a Subject Repository...
> I am wondering if others have run into this dilemma and can provide
> me with many good reasons why submission should take place in and
> institutional repository rather than a subject repository?

The dilemma has a simple, optimal and universal solution:

Direct deposit should be in the IR. SRs and CRs can harvest from IRs.

That's what the OAI protocol is for. Institutions are the research
providers. They are the ones with the direct stake in the record-keeping
and showcasing of their own research output, and in maximizing its
accessibility, visibility, usage and impact. Institutions are also in
the position to mandate that their own research output be deposited in
their own IR; funder mandates can reinforce that, and can benefit from
institutional monitoring and oversight (as long as they too mandate
institutional deposit and central harvesting, rather than direct central
deposit).

Convergent institutional self-archiving makes sound sense and scales
systematically to cover all of research output space, whereas divergent
self-archiving, willy-nilly in SRs and CRs is arbitrary and simply
produces confusion, conflict, and frustration in researchers, if they
need to deposit multiply.

(Before you reply to sing the praises of SRs and CRs, recall that their
virtues are identical if they are harvested rather than the loci of
direct deposit. The overwhelming benefit of IR deposit is that that is
the way to ensure that all research output is universally self-archived.)

THE FEEDER AND THE DRIVER: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest Centrally
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/Harnad-driverstate2.html

How To Integrate University and Funder Open Access Mandates
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/369-guid.html

Optimize the NIH Mandate Now: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest Centrally
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/344-guid.html

Stevan Harnad

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> From: Michele Kimpton <michele at dspace.org>
>
> I can not directly answer your question, but I did want to let you
> know that Policyarchive.net is a DSpace instance with Manakin.  Why
> not have the content deposited in both?  Maybe you can even use SWORD
> to facilitate this.  The IR being the "steward" of the content and
> PolicyArchive having a rich collection of subject based documents.  It
> is also a good preservation strategy to have the same document in
> different geographical locations under different management regimes.
>
>> I have just run into my first case where I am finding our IR in
>> competition with a Subject Repository. I've been working with an
>> institutional center which is outside of our university but very
>> closely affiliated with it. We were about to make some final
>> decisions about community and collection development when my contact
>> discovered a new Subject Repository supporting the type of research
>> conducted at their Center and wants to explore this alternative
>> before committing to submitting their work to our university repository.
>
>> http://www.policyarchive.net/index.php
>
>> I am wondering if others have run into this dilemma and can provide
>> me with many good reasons why submission should take place in and
>> institutional repository rather than a subject repository?
>
>> Also, as a side question, I know you can item map within your own
>> DSpace instance, but is it possible to item map to another DSpace
>> instance?
>
>> Beth Tillinghast

> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 11:07:38 -0700
> From: "Romulo Rivera" <rrivera at cgs.org>
>
> My name is Romulo Rivera, Project Manager for PolicyArchive.  We are also a
> Dspace shop, so we'd be happy to work together with you on this matter.
> Maybe we can harvest the center's data from your repository. I will
> follow-up with you.