Re: D-Lib article about Cornell's Institutional Repository

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

As part of a recent study, I had occasion to return to the 
faculty web sites at which journal articles in the social 
sciences had been posted. Of 11 papers in politics and economics, 
only 5 were available at their same location 15 months later. 
Five of the other six of them were elsewhere at the university 
web site, but could not be located except by searching for the 
article either through the university's search engine or by a 
general-purpose search--not a single one had links to the new 
location. The 11th was no longer on the university site of the 
first author, but was found posted on the sites of one of the 
other authors.

To me, this indicates the completely unsatisfactory nature of use 
of faculty web sites for access to journal article copies. They 
would only be suitable, if the university took the initiative of 
harvesting them from the original sites once they had been posted 
and putting them in a stable and professional-run repository.

In connection with the findings about IRs, I consider this an 
argument for either university-operated deposit in suitable IRs 
in the first place, or the use of centralized repositories.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu


----- Original Message -----
From: Greg Tananbaum <gtananbaum@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 8:26 pm
Subject: Re: D-Lib article about Cornell's Institutional Repository
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> This is a very interesting study with nuggets for both poles to 
> trumpet. What I find salient is the belief of those interviewed 
> that personal, departmental, and lab web pages (not to mention 
> subject repositories) provide an adequate forum for the 
> dissemination of a researcher's work. The intelligent IR 
> implementation will recognize that established pathways exist, 
> and that faculty are loathe to disrupt or duplicate them.  If 
> libraries value enhanced scholarly communication as a high 
> priority (a perspective not generally shared by their faculty, 
> according to this survey), then they must do more of the heavy 
> lifting to facilitate it.  This means lowering or eliminating 
> the already low barriers to repository participation, 
> integrating with existing dissemination mechanisms, and 
> investing in more cross-walking and less cross-talking.
>
> Best, Greg
>
> Greg Tananbaum
> gtananbaum@gmail.com
> (510) 295-7504