Feeding the Fledgling Repository: Starting an Institutional Repository at an Academic Health Sciences Library

Abstract

started an institutional repository (IR), the Jefferson DigitalCommons (JDC) http://jdc.jefferson.edu/. Originally intended as a showcase for faculty scholarship, it has evolved to serve also as a university press for original journals and newsletters, and as an institutional archive. Many lessons have been learned about marketing techniques, common IR issues, and advantages of an IR for a library. IR recruitment has come to be viewed as yet another form of collection development and has been integrated into all forms of the Library's outreach. Jefferson's academic health sciences environment has proven similar to other academic environments on issues of acceptance and participation.

Research Support in Health Sciences Libraries: A Scoping Review

“…Many of these evaluations were largely informal (n=17), with the authors reporting anecdotal feedback they had received after implementing new services (32,37,41,42,44,66,71,72,81,84,89,94) or in which they supplemented another form of evaluation along with informal feedback (32,48,55,78,83). Statistics gathering (n=13) was the second most common form of evaluation, ranging from general usage and activity statistics (40,43,48,50,55,57,75,79,88,95) to more specific forms of data gathering, such as tracking the number of related requests after a seminar (86), tracking the use of the services provided by a bioinformatics librarian (69), and tracking the YouTube views of instructional videos (57).…”

Biomedical text summarization to support genetic database curation: using Semantic MEDLINE to create a secondary database of genetic information

“…For example, an academic library could partner with other campus departments in creating the framework for enhancing and preserving the institution's research, possibly creating unique and priceless resources. There are several examples in which librarians have taken the lead in information curation, access, preservation, and management, including in neuro-ophthalmology [2], institutional repositories [3], and other areas. Curators of secondary databases face the demanding task of identifying relevant information from primary sources, which are continually increasing [4].…”

Making institutional repositories work

“…No matter their background, libraries and repository managers simply could not sustain voluntary faculty engagement with the repository (Koopman & Kipnis, 2009). …”

“…This is especially useful if librarians hold faculty status at their institution and would be responsible for their own scholarship and research for promotion and tenure. By targeting the libraries as an academic unit, the libraries can market the repository to other units using itself as its primary example (Koopman & Kipnis, 2009). …”