Institutional Repositories

[Alison Buckholtz <alison@arl.org>]

SPARC has released a major white paper, "The Case for Institutional
Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper," which examines the strategic roles
institutional repositories serve for colleges and universities.  The paper
asserts that institutional repositories are a natural extension of an
academic institution's role as a generator of primary research, and
envisions such repositories as critical components in the evolving
structure of scholarly communication.  It is available at
http://www.arl.org/sparc/IR/ir.html and
http://www.arl.org/sparc/IR/IR_Final_Release_102.pdf.

Institutional repositories -- digital collections that capture and
preserve the intellectual output of university communities -- answer two
challenges currently facing academic institutions.  First, institutional
repositories reform scholarly communication by stimulating innovation in a
disaggregated publishing structure.  Second, they serve as tangible
indicators of an institution's quality, thus increasing its visibility,
prestige, and public value.

SPARC's white paper describes institutional repositories' role as catalyst
for change and explores their impact on major stakeholders in the
scholarly communication process.

If you are interested exploring this issue, SPARC and SPARC Europe are
cosponsoring workshops in October 2002 in Washington, DC and Geneva,
Switzerland.  Please see http://www.arl.org/sparc/core/index.asp?page=h23
for details.

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Alison Buckholtz
Associate Enterprise Director
SPARC -- The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
21 Dupont Circle, Ste. 800, Washington, DC  20036 USA
T: 202 296 2296 x115 * F: 202 872 0884 * E: alison@arl.org
http://www.arl.org/sparc    http://www.sparceurope.org
http://www.arl.org/sparc/DI
http://www.createchange.org