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Re: Response to J. Kleiner - Institutional Repository Idea

I believe David is correct: the 24,000 figure is too high because of the
redundancy of journals. In an offline message today I received a comment
that also serves to shrink the necessary number of DRs: aggregated
search. Even though the DR idea is not an Open Access proposal (but
Almost Open Access), a DR would have a search function, and that function
would cut through the boundaries of the traditional journal: A
traditional journal is in part a form of aggregation, but with search, the
aggregation takes place dynamically, in real-time. So the 600-800
journals in law may have their counterparts in perhaps 6-8 DRs. I have no
idea what the 24,000 figure ultimately gets reduced to, but this proposed
project becomes more achievable the smaller the number.

Incidentally, David's comment about arXiv is interesting in that yet
another offline message (they piled up today!) said that "the future is
not DSpace, the future is more like arXiv."

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Groenewegen" <d.groenewegen@ballarat.edu.au>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 5:56 PM
Subject: Re: Response to J. Kleiner - Institutional Repository Idea

This is a most interesting idea, but it occurs to me that your estimate on
the number of DRs you would need is way too high. While there may be
24,000 journals in the world there are not 24,000 areas of study - many
existing journals are either be in direct competition for papers in the
same area (Tetrahedron Letters, Organics Letters and SynLett for instance
cover much the same turf) , or reflect regional societies that cover the
same area - many countries have learned societies in Physics, Chemistry
etc etc, all of them producing a journal. Duplicating this structure is
pointless, and would only make the job harder.

As arXiv.org has shown, the old divisions (which were based on specialised
audience and the need to keep print titles relevant and affordable) need
not and indeed should not apply. Any physics article can find a home
there, regardless of which specialised print journal it was published in.
Better to have fewer DRs (which is also far more manageable), but more
mirrors to share the load. This also allows those without the resources to
manage a DR the ability to host a mirror, which is less work, but still
critical. It also makes for more copies for preservation purposes.

David Groenewegen
Information Resources Management Librarian
University of Ballarat
AUSTRALIA
email: d.groenewegen@ballarat.edu.au


espositoj@gmail.com 10/19/05 8:19 am >>>

Janellyn Kleiner's recent post about what positive steps libraries could
be taking prompts me to share an idea I have been nursing for some time
about institutional repositories. I hasten to add that I am not a
librarian myself and that this long post may be even screwier than my
usual.

Institutional repositories (IRs) align themselves, understandably, with
their parent institutions.  Since most institutions at least in part
serve undergraduates, for whom the goal of creating "the well-rounded
person" has not been entirely abandoned, IRs set out to cover
everything--to put the universe into the university.  Let's call this
the vertical axis:

the self-contained institution, with the IR that reflects the
institution's goals and constituencies.  Researchers, on the other hand,
tend to align themselves with other researchers in their fields.  The
expert on the use of microalgae for CO2 mitigation happens to reside at
Tulane, but his or her intellectual colleagues may sit at the U. of
Hawaii or in Tokyo.  Research thus is horizontal, straddling multiple
institutions.  This is the world of professional societies and academic
fields (which are reflected in journals publishing).  There is a tension
here:  libraries and IRs are being asked to face in two directions,
vertically and horizontally, straining resources.

Not surprisingly, the actual use of IRs is less than many had hoped for,
and much of the use is for such things as students' papers.  Nothing
wrong with that, but it is not in keeping with the often-declared goal
of "capturing the intellectual output of the university."  What I
propose is that in addition to IRs (which ultimately are simply going to
be extensions of course-management systems, so why not just hand off
this function to Blackboard and be done with it?), libraries organize
disciplinary repositories or DRs.  These would be horizontal, not
vertical, and reflect the actual research activities of the global
intellectual community.  There are 24,000 journals today, which is a
starting point for the number of DRs we will need.  With about 10,000
colleges and universities in the world today, with allowances for
different ways of counting, that comes to about 2.4 DRs per institution,
though naturally one would expect Harvard and the University of Chicago
to do more than Middlesex Community College or an emerging institution
in sub-Saharan Africa.

What I propose is that these DRs be assembled on a consortial basis,
with institutions sharing access to DRs and each institution taking
charge--exclusive charge, so as to avoid redundancy--of a certain number
of topics.  How to assign who does what will not be easy, but it simply
makes no sense for there to be competing DRs for some segment of
nanotechnology or Keats research.  Universities can save buckets of
money by recognizing that in some cases, there is no need to be
universal.

How would this work?  Progressively, I would hope. The larger
institutions would take over the curation of more disciplines, but even
the smallest would have to contribute something in order to get access
to all the rest. The definitive DR on stem-cell research may be curated
at Hopkins and the history of Silicon Valley at San Jose State--not
really comparable, to be sure--but Hopkins and SJS would each have
access to the other's DR.  To each according to his means.  To join the
consortium, an institution would have to propose to the governing board
what DRs the prospective member plans to sponsor and curate.  The stern
gaze of the board would prevent free riders or "cheap riders":  Carry
your weight in curation or be an outcast.

As for independent scholars without institutional affiliation, I propose
that they would gain access by doing the equivalent of purchasing a
library card from a member institution.  For $50 you get everything.

This plan solves a number of problems.  It aligns repositories with the
research community--horizontally, in DRs.  It saves money by negating
the need for institutions to try to cover everything, a pointless and
unnecessary endeavor in the world of the Internet.  For those
uncomfortable with commercial organizations operating within the
academic community, it provides a purely consortial arrangement among
similar not-for-profits.  It is progressive, enabling the participation
of Third World scholars on the same level of access as their lucky
counterparts in Oxford and Palo Alto.  It provides a good ROI for major
institutions, and a fabulous ROI for small ones.  It eliminates the
free-rider problem by mandating some level of curation, however small
(but scaled to an institution's resources), and thus provides an
incentive for all institutions to get involved.  And it captures the
output of academic institutions in such a way as to provide significant
incentives for researchers to participate (which is the problem with
IRs:  little researcher participation).

Open Access purists will note that this plan falls short of full OA.
That is correct:  this is Almost Open Access, as it requires
institutional affiliation (which you can get for the cost of a library
card).  The virtue of AOA as opposed to OA is that AOA is sufficiently
suasive to ensure economic commitment and participation.  Traditional
publishers (for whom there is absolutely nothing in this plan) will
remark that AOA is what they have advocated all along.  That is also
correct.  But publishers will never grow comfortable with pure OA, as
their business training will not permit them to expend 100% of their
effort to satisfy 1% of demand.

But they are not needed for this plan, so their comfort is besides the
point.

Joe Esposito