IR @ INFLIBNET: Open Access Repository and Availability of ETDs in Nepal

Abstract:  Most of the research work done around the globe as an academic mandate does not get published. Some of the researchers who publish their work in academic journals are not easily accessible to the general public due to their high subscription costs. Very few of them get published in an open-access repository accessible to all interested. Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) are very important to the university students and other researchers because of their academic value. Despite its importance, the archived ETDs in the institutional repository of the universities abroad (western countries) are not accessible to the public. To fulfill this gap in scholarly communication, Nepali universities and some other institutions in Nepal have initiated digital archiving in an open-access medium. This paper tries to show the situation of digital repositories in Nepal. Ten major digital repositories of universities, research institutions, the United Nations Resource Centre in Nepal, and the digital repositories run by the organisations of Nepal government, as well as non-government organisations, have been selected for this study. They archive a variety of items including books, journal articles, book chapters, ETDs, reports, conference papers, and images while major collections in the university repositories are ETDs. Most of these repositories are open-access.