Rethinking Institutional Repository Strategies: Report of a CNI Executive Roundtable Held April 2 & 3, 2017

"We have often framed the repository as a library/archives program, and particularly as we have started to talk about research data management, or indeed even serious support for an institutional OA mandate, it is clear that most libraries lack funding to support those kinds of resource-intensive services. Ongoing conversations about how to fund research data management at some institutions are now involving the IT unit, the VP for Research’s office, the Provost’s office, and academic departments. The point is that stewardship and the support of faculty are now being positioned not as library problems but as institutional problems arising from the changing nature of scholarly practice and the institution needs to step up to it. The library may be involved in stepping up to address the problem but fundamentally it is an institutional problem. This theme was emphasized by several representatives in one of the roundtables, and they used the term “enterprise repository” to represent this concept. A case may be made for trying to move towards an enterprise repository that encompasses information researchers are actively developing in the process of their work but that that libraries would not usually consider in scope of an institutional repository because it is still too unstable and requires very different management strategies. This is a part of a broader strategy by which libraries might engage faculty early in, and throughout, the research process, rather than just receiving “outputs” from this process. Another approach would be to broaden the scope and content of general-purpose (usually commercial) digital asset management systems, which many institutions have invested in, but usually have not included objects curated by the library. It may be time for libraries to take a look at these systems and figure out how they fit into the landscape and how to move towards enterprise repositories that accommodate a much more diverse and inclusive set of institutional content assets. As is the case with IRs, at this point, generally there is no institution-wide funding for such a system, and for progress to be made, it is likely that the provost’s office would need to make some serious commitment to the process, which would involve information stewards across the campus as well as faculty. We should seek to develop and use systems that allow us to leverage workflow at an enterprise level and to have systems that will work and interoperate at a consortial level. A very modest beginning to one aspect of this is going on in the context of the SHARE initiative. Going forward, library administrators need to focus more on how development is being handled on some open source repository platforms and whether development agendas are genuinely being driven by the strategic needs of the institutions or have become dominated by the technical agenda of developers themselves. We should be asking ourselves this question. It is easy to get captured by the agenda of frontline developers, which can diverge from strategic priorities and goals. In addition, there can be disconnects between the developers of the repository infrastructure and the librarians who provide the outreach to the university community."