GEORGIA KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY MEETING

COMO2014, Augusta

Karen Calhoun

October 2, 20141

Networking repositories

Optimizing impact

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/

Link to Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/amarintha/networking-repositories-optimizing-impact-georgia-knowledge-repository-meeting

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Topics todayWhy repositories are importanto Value/positive impact up to nowoWhat is or could be in themo Reasons to get excited about repositories going forward

Challenges of repositorieso Contento Visibility and reacho Little to no “social life”

Solutions / opportunities for repositories (optimizing impact)o “Networking” – recruiting content, enhancing visibility, interaction

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WHY REPOSITORIES ARE IMPORTANT

arXiv.org

Source of traffic analysis: http://compete.com (US data only)

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A lightning introduction to repositories

Dictionary definition:◦ A place or container where things can be deposited for storage or

safekeeping

A key outcome of the first decade of digital library research and practice (1991-2001)

Most are open access (online, free of charge, free of most copyright and licensing restrictions)

Three kinds of repos:Subject-based (centered on a subject, discipline or a group of these)Institutionally-based (centered on the intellectual output of an

institution)Meta-repositories (repository of repositories, like GKR)

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How Many Repositories Worldwide?

We don’t know,but …

Repository66.org(shown) tracks 3,045 repos …containing12.3 million items

ROAR.org tracks3,787

OpenDOAR.orgtracks 2,760

40% or more of registered repos use the DSpace repository platform

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The Value of Repositories Up to Now

Improved discoverability and public accessibility of scholarly information (broad access for more people)

◦ Repos are routinely crawled and indexed by search engines (Google and Google Scholar) – Items reach a broad audience; downloaded often

◦ Growing number of open access versions of articles◦ In a sample of 2500+ articles from subscription-based journals, 38% had open access versions – and

Google/Google Scholar located over ¾ of them (Norris, Oppenheim, Rowland 2008)

Open exchange between systems – interoperability, remixing, re-use, disclosure, dissemination (“networking”)

Centralized, easier access to hard-to-find content◦ Repos contain not only pre-prints and post-prints of articles, but reports and working papers, teaching

and learning materials, presentations, conference proceedings, media, student work …

Long-term access to materials (preservation)

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Networking repositories

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Getting Attention on the Web

“You Are What You Link”Source: Adamic and Adar 2001

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Discoverability: Integrated and DecentralizedIntegrated discoverability

“The Libraries will need a [pre-indexed] system or service layer that integrates metadata from internal, external, owned, licensed, and

freely-available data sources selected by library staff” (Hanson et al. 2011)

Decentralized discoverability“The Libraries should generate … metadata for local collections and data sources that can be exported, harvested, or made available for

crawling by external systems.” (Hanson et al. 2011)

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An Example of Best Practice (you are what you link)!

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IntegratedDiscovery

Content from

Creators and Their

Agents

Local Catalog Local Repositories

Locally managed

resources Feeds from

other sources (fee or free)

Local discovery

layer

Decentralized Discoverability

Uploaded/harvested/crawled/indexed metadata

& links

Library cooperative commons

services and registries

GALILEOSearch engines (Google, Google

Scholar)

National, international, and

domain-specific collections and

services

National, international, and

domain-specific collections and

services

National, international, and domain-

specific collections and

services

GKR

Georgia DLDPLA

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What’s in repositories today?

Source: Calhoun, K. (2014). Exploring Digital Libraries. p. 95.

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Some additional reasons to get excited about repositories (and what they might contain)

Support particular teaching and learning environments◦ Example: Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College (http://serc.carleton.edu)◦ Example: Seaside Research Portal at Notre Dame University (https://seaside.library.nd.edu/)

Collect and showcase faculty, student or other local work or events◦ Example: Bucknell University institutional repository, e.g., Faculty Colloquia speaker series (

http://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_coll/)◦ Example: Franklin & Marshall College student honors theses (https://dspace.fandm.edu/ Select

“college library”)◦ Example: Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (http://hurricanearchive.org)

Expose special collections of institutional significance to a larger audience

◦ Example: Franklin & Marshall College yearbooks (https://dspace.fandm.edu/ Select “college library”)

Expose and preserve Georgia local and family history◦ Georgia HomePLACE and the Digital Library of Georgia (http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/; see also

http://dp.la/info/hubs/)

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THE CHALLENGES OF REPOSITORIES

“If a network-based service’s intended communities do not actively engage and participate, the service will die.”*

*Calhoun, K. (2014). Exploring Digital Libraries. p. 180.

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A repository should not be a solution looking for a problem to solve

Source: Cf. Rieger 2008, under section 2

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Problems of institutional repositoriesVisibility and reach (low awareness and recognition)Weak understanding of community needs and attitudes, work practices, motivatorsDifficulty articulating the valueDifficulty recruiting contentRead-only (“web 1.0”)Often conceived of as “destination sites” only (rather than as assets to be networked)

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Low awareness of institutional repository

D-Scholarship@Pitt0.0%

10.0%20.0%30.0%40.0%50.0%60.0%70.0%80.0%90.0%

100.0% 92.7%

75.8%

57.2%

Unaware undergrads Unaware grad/PhD Unaware faculty

Source: Calhoun and Fudrow 2014, detail of slide 16; see also Moore 2011

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Subject-Based Repositories

In general, subject-based repositories have been more successful at attracting submissions and use

World ranking of 1,746 web repositories, January 2014

Source:repositories.webometrics.info

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Successful Subject Repositories:

Are woven into the way their disciplines communicate: Readers/researchers: where they look for information, see

what’s been or will be published, look for collaborators Writers/contributors: where they “register” their work

(and establish claims to discoveries), where they first share their work with colleagues for comment/review

Had a strong community orientation at inception and have a high degree of trust and participation at maturity

Cf. Erway 2012

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Needs Assessment: the exception rather than the ruleWHY DO IT

Understand the context of potential use

Understand workflows and work practices, preferences, beliefs of potential depositors

Identify use cases

Generate awareness

Understand how to talk about repositories to those who will contribute content

◦ (how does the repository solve their problems?)

WHO HAS DONE IT

Almost no one

Exceptions:◦ St Jean et al. 2011 (the IR as a local

resource)◦ Maness, Miaskiewicz and Sumner

2008 (IR “personas”)◦ Moore 2011 (faculty attitudes and

practices)◦ Palmer, Teffeau and Newton 2008

(problems an IR might solve for faculty)

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Content recruitment: A critical measure of engagement and participation

Ratio of

amount of content in the repository

content that could reasonably be expected to be there

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How big are they vs. how big should they be?

“If all of the tenured academic research active staff at a UK university deposited all of their annual output (papers, presentations, learning materials, etc.) in the institutional repository, deposits would be in the range of 10,000 items per year” (Carr and Brody 2007)

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Some Size ComparisonsName of Repository No. of items (year reported) World

Ranking*arXiv.org 971,292 (2014) 1

Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)

400,000 (2014) 4

University of California eScholarship

74,678 (2014) 6

AgEcon Search 78,467 (2014) 9

DSpace@MIT 74,986 (2014) 18

SMARTech (Georgia Tech)

46,520 (2014) 67

Athenaeum (U. of Ga.) 14,204 (2014) 587

Sources: Cybermetrics Lab, OpenDOARhttp://repositories.webometrics.info/en/World; data as of July 2014; 1,983 repositories tracked

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“Social” repositories?People used to social sites bring their expectations with them when they approach repositories, but …Most repositories continue to operate from a traditional, collections-centered, “siloed” service modelThe social nature and roles of a library are typically lost – repositories and other digital libraries are mostly read-only (“web 1.0”)“Social” platforms are active, open, gregarious and “chatty” with people, organizations, other software, servers, apps … A repository that incorporates social web approaches continues to be the exception rather than the rule

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An Experiment at Teachers College, Columbia University

“Institutional repositories may garner greater community participation by shifting the focus from library goals … to one that focuses on building localized teaching and learning communities …” (Cocciolo 2010)

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Networking Repositories - Some Bad News

Low Indexing Ratios (Google Scholar) A large proportion of repository traffic comes from

Google Scholar AND

“Search engine optimization (SEO) research conducted at the University of Utah has revealed that many

institutional repositories have a low indexing ratio [average 30%] in Google Scholar.” (Arlitsch and O’Brien

2012) EEK!

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Networking Repositories - Some Good News

GALILEO attracts a good deal of attention on the Web

AND

The inclusion of the Georgia Knowledge Repository in the GALILEO discovery environment should be A GOOD THING!

galileo.usg.eduSource: compete.com,9/24/2014Unique visitors per monthRange from ~75K to ~200K

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Optimizing impact

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The starting point: Working with a “mess” … holistically

“Repositories and services often exist in this sort of mess. Not as a result of any failing or sloppiness on the part of the managers or developers, but because … repositories exist in the midst of an extremely complex set of interactions and influences (only a small percentage of which are technical).” (Robertson, Mahey, and Barker 2008)

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Positive interdependence An element of cooperative and collaborative learning where members of a group who share common goals perceive that working together is individually and collectively beneficial and success depends on the participation of all members

Solutions and Opportunities to Consider1. A strategy based on community engagement to…

2. Recruit or aggregate content

3. Visibility and reach (discoverability)

All need to be understood

at 3 levels simultaneously:

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Global

Local

Regional

(Remember slide 14?Integrated ANDdecentralized discoverability)

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1. Positive interdependence:Understanding and engaging with communities

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What to do?INVENTORY REPOSITORIES

ASSESS NEEDS - UNDERSTAND AUDIENCES

Name

Size

Usage (stats, web analytics)

RankingsSimilar/related/competitor sitesLast needs assessment?Benefits to target audiencesCommunications/outreach activitiesPotential for social features?What else?

Audience segmentation

Size

Needs assessments

Work practice studies Discipline-specific normsFunders, funding policies Value propositions (by audience segment)What else?

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Improving value propositions to stakeholders and target audiences

Adapted from: Calhoun, K. (2014). Exploring Digital Libraries. Table 8.1, p. 183

Hosting Library • Fostering open access to scholarship• Raising profile of library’s curatorial role in

scholarly communication

Parent Institution • Showcasing institution’s intellectual output/prestige

• Source of institution-level metrics

Institution’s End-Users • Discovering research conducted locally• Engaging with learners and teachers• Networking, finding collaborators

Institution’s Faculty & Researchers

• Increasing exposure to work• Solving visibility, management, or access

problems

Selected communities statewide, regionally, nationally, globally?

• Demonstrating societal benefits of research and education

• Supporting knowledge transfer and economic growth

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2. Positive interdependence:Recruiting or aggregating content

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Things to think about: recruiting content

More “social,” interactive interface

Understanding and articulating the value from THEIR perspectives

Making it easy to get started

Crowdsourcing

Talking about open access … carefully and strategically

Additional services (mediated deposit, automated deposit, copyright, author fees, altmetrics e.g. tracking downloads)

Many more ideas: Exploring Digital Libraries, p. 197 (Table 8.2, “Barriers and Service Responses for IRs:”)

Involving intended audiences in setting strategy/objectives

Finding and working with “champions”

New kinds of content

Validating assumptions about intended audiences, needs, content, expectations

Branding (or re-branding) and communications programs (including ones using liaison librarians to build relationships/get the word out)

Raising awareness and recognition of value

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3. Positive interdependence:Enhancing visibility and reach (discoverability)

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Shared Values:Data

Sharing,Syndication,

Synchronization,Linking

Positive Interdependence: Integrated and Decentralized Discoverability

Global

Local

Regional

LocalAuthentication,

Discovery/ DeliveryServices

GroupDiscovery/

DeliveryServices

(like GALILEO)

Outward Integration, Exposure,

and Linking(e.g., Search engines,

other global aggregators)

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Things to think about: discoverability

Web traffic analysis (at local and GKR/GALILEO level)

Define and implement best practices for SEO/ASEO

Provide stable identifiers and URLs

Establish links from high traffic sites (e.g., learning management systems?)

For certain types of collections, working with Wikipedia

Participate in registries and interoperability frameworks (other repositories of repositories)

New institutional repositories for local collections whose metadata can be exported, harvested, made available for crawling

Discovery system indexing for GKR and/or for GALILEO as a whole (selected external repositories and outside sources like HathiTrust, Internet Archive, top-ranked subject repositories, other sources that are or could be indexed by EBSCO Discovery Service)

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No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.Meditation XVII, John Donne

Thank You!

karencal129@gmail.com

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References -1/3- Adamic, Lada A., and Eytan Adar. “You Are What You Link.” In 10th Annual International World Wide Web Conference, Hong Kong. 2001. http://www10.org/program/society/yawyl/YouAreWhatYouLink.htm

Arlitsch, Kenning, and Patrick S. O’Brien. “Invisible Institutional Repositories: Addressing the Low Indexing Ratios of IRs in Google Scholar.” Library Hi Tech 30, no. 1 (February 3, 2012): 60–81. doi:10.1108/07378831211213210

Arlitsch, Kenning, and Patrick S. OBrien. 2013. Improving the Visibility and Use of Digital Repositories through SEO. LITA Guides. Chicago IL: ALA Editions.

Calhoun, Karen. Exploring Digital Libraries: Foundations, Practice, Prospects. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, An imprint of the American Library Association, 2014. http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Digital-Libraries-Karen-Calhoun/dp/1555709850

Calhoun, Karen, and John Fudrow. Highlights of ULS FY14 General Survey. University of Pittsburgh. University Library System, January 31, 2014. http://www.library.pitt.edu/other/files/pdf/assessment/ULS%20FY14%20General%20Survey.pdf

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References -2/3- Carr, Leslie, and Tim Brody. “Size Isn’t Everything.” D-Lib Magazine 13, no. 7/8 (July 2007). doi:10.1045/july2007-carr. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july07/carr/07carr.html

Cocciolo, Anthony. “Can Web 2.0 Enhance Community Participation in an Institutional Repository? The Case of PocketKnowledge at Teachers College, Columbia University.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 36, no. 4 (July 2010): 304–12. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2010.05.004

Erway, Ricky. Lasting Impact Sustainability of Disciplinary Repositories. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research, 2012. http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2012/2012-03.pdf

Hanson, Cody, Heather Hessel, Deborah Boudewyns, et al. Discoverability Phase 2 Final Report. Report, February 4, 2011. http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/99734

Maness, J. M., T. Miaskiewicz, and T. Sumner. “Using Personas to Understand the Needs and Goals of Institutional Repository Users.” D-Lib Magazine 14, no. 9/10 (2008). http://dlib.org/dlib/september08/maness/09maness.html

Moore, Gale. “Survey of University of Toronto Faculty Awareness, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Scholarly Communication: A Preliminary Report,” March 3, 2011. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/26446

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References -3/3- Norris, M., C. Oppenheim, and F. Rowland. “Finding Open Access Articles Using Google, Google Scholar, OAIster and OpenDOAR.” Online Information Review 32, no. 6 (2008): 709–15.

Palmer, C. L., L. C. Teffeau, and M. P. Newton. Identifying Factors of Success in CIC Institutional Repository Development-Final Report. Urbana, IL: Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship, August 2008. http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/8981

Rieger, O. Y. “Opening up Institutional Repositories: Social Construction of Innovation in Scholarly Communication.” Journal of Electronic Publishing 11, no. 3 (2008). http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0011.301?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Robertson, R. John, Maendra Mahey, and Phil Barker. “A Bug’s Life?: How Metaphors from Ecology Can Articulate the Messy Details of Repository Interactions.” Ariadne, no. 57 (2008): 5. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue57/robertson-et-al#19

St. Jean, Beth, S. Y. Rieh, E. Yakel, and K. Markey. “Unheard Voices: Institutional Repository End-Users.” College & Research Libraries 72, no. 1 (2011): 21–42.