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Re: the value of IRs



#2 is a little vague, without more specificity about just how IRs are to be used for this purpose. But #1 is what I am really questioning, in practical terms. The "relevance" to whom? The "institution's visibility, status" in whose eyes? Who is the target audience for IRs? Presumably the most important audience would be the people who make decisions having a major financial impact on universities, like state legislators or members of Congress.

But does anyone have any evidence that either of these important constituencies has ever actually viewed anything in an IR? And what would such a person make of very specialized research? On what grounds could such a person pass judgment as to the quality or "relevance" of such research, unless it were research targeted to very specific projects funded by the state or federal government, which would normally be brought to the attention of the funding bodies through formal reports on the use of funds granted, not through materials found on IRs. So, exactly whom are universities trying to impress with their IRs?

A true evaluation of the value of a university's research output would be a mammoth undertaking, far beyond what any individual legislator could even begin to tackle. What determines the university's "status," then, since no such formal evaluation is ever actually carried out (apart, I suppose, from accrediting bodies)?

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


Sandy: A recent reading of Raym Crow's 2002 SPARC White Paper on IRs reminded me that he gave two principal reason for setting them up:

1. Serve as tangible indicators of an institution's quality and to demonstrate the relevance of its research activities, thus increasing the institution's visibility, status, and public value (what one could term administrative aggregation).

2. Provide tools to assist universities in re-shaping the scholarly communications process (what one could term a repair function).

Ann Okerson/Yale Library