GOOD MORNING!!!!

& WELCOME TO CAPE TOWN

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Two South African IRs a comparative overview: UCT & UP

Annah MachaMPhil Student Department

of Library & Information Science, UCT

annah.macha@uct.ac.za

A/Prof Karin de JagerCentre for Information

Literacy, UCTkarin.dejager@uct.ac.

za

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Introduction More institutions establishing IRs in SA many documents need to be preserved,

managed, & shared IRs preserve institution’s intellectual

property and increase institution’s visibility and prestige (Prosser, 2003:168)

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Development of South African IRs 2002: national research strategy published renewal in information services sector SARIS Project: SA research institutes &

university libraries were accessing world research literature at high costs

Framework for eResearch services to SA research community be created

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Development cont… eResearch & innovation services be jointly

funded projects coordinated at country level 2007: ASSAf inaugural meeting: beginning of

open access movement in SA (Gray) Initiatives were not successful eIFL & the Mellon Foundation provided

funding for starting up IR projects in SA.

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Towards developing an IR at the UCT

Mss & A of the UCT Libraries began digitizing selected material in 2001 (Dunlop and Hart: 2005)

Digitization projects based on the San photographs (1910 and the late 1920s)

San collection listed by UNESCO:documentary heritage of international importance

Other projects at UCT, instigated by individual departments e.g. Computer Science- 2003, Faculty of Law- 2005

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Establishment of the UCT IR Interviews showed digital initiatives at UCT

conducted at small scale: cost and staff resources

IR needed a budget for staffing, hardware and software and trained members of staff

From around 2006, repeated requests for University to budget for the start of an IR

In 2009, UCT Libraries obtained funding from the Carnegie Corporation - with WITS & UKZN $2.5 million over 3yrs

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UCT IR New digitization unit was established, in

charge of developing the IR showcase UCT’s research The UCT repository at present consists of:a. digital collections-1891b. finding aids- 866 and c. theses and dissertations-1099

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Description of IR @ UP UP selected for comparative analysis

with UCT: its well established. At present UP IR consists of 6621 materials

UP started as a pilot project in 2000 by: 2002 repository contained 39 theses

and 26 dissertations 2003: policy adopted by Senate to make

submission compulsory based on the success UPeTD, in 2006 UP

established UPSpace UP also has OpenUP: a sub-collection of

the larger UPSpace collection (Pienaar and Van Deventer: 2008)

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Prerequisites for an IR Identify important role players Address issues of resources Evaluate software that would make the IR

an Open Access Initiative Establish policy for the IR Restructure library to accommodate

change Get a license

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UP & UCT compared UP HOD Information

Science, subject librarians, metadata specialist, a digitization specialist and IT staff”

Needs analysis: survey

open source software – ETD-db

UCT Head of Digitization

Unit small-scale project in

2001 Proprietary software

DigiTool would integrate with UCT online catalogue Aleph and UCT portal, PRIMO by Ex Libris

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Comparative analysis cont... At UP the IR

governed by Senate approved policy

new roles and responsibilities for staff

UP registered with the ROAR, openDOAR, Google Scholar & DSpace

UCT created a policy for the submission of print & electronic theses

UCT is restructuring roles and responsibilities of its staff

UCT has to register with open access harvesters

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Criteria for a successful repository 1 1. Content

Content recruitment is key: the core of the IRboth born-digital and older repurposed digital materials“the larger the critical mass of documents in an IR, the more it will facilitate output measures.” (Westell, 2006: 216)

2. Usenumber of users, type of content used and nature of use (Harnad and McGovern: 2009).Webometrics-how many hits have been made from the repository and how many articles have been downloaded

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Criteria for a successful repository 2 Submission “repository deposit activity measures”

(Thomas: 2007) Number of submissions Frequency of submissions Type of submitter Participation of key stakeholders

SupportConstituent support Financial support Technical support

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Criteria for a successful repository 3 Advocacy

informed awareness-“getting the right message to the right people with the tone and content varied by audience” (Johnson, 2007: 23)communication plan for advocacy campaignadvocacy strategiesaddressing authors’ concerns

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Criteria for a successful repository 4 Influence

providing assistance to other institutions in the country, region and in the worldCollaboration encouraged among IRs

Interoperabilitycapability of a computer hardware or software system to communicate and work effectively with another system in the exchange of data (Reitz: 2006)Interoperability: metadata &format compliance Dublin Core metadata: OAI proposed OAI-PMH standardsOAIster and other search engines, Google Scholar can harvest their contents

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Finally UP & UCT Two IRs not similar UP firstly ETD; then UPSpace & Open UP UCT not focused on ETD alone: Special &

Heritage collections UCT will in future have ETD repository UP: open source, UCT: proprietary

software UP as a benchmark: success Influence

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Conclusion IRs are important:

Collect & housePreserve & archive research outputEnhance visibility & prestige of institution