Copyright Gregg A. Silvis and Sandra K. Millard, 2006.

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EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2006

Sandra MillardAssistant Director for Library Public Servicesskm@udel.edu

Gregg SilvisAssistant Director for Library Computing Servicesgregg@udel.edu

A Successful Implementation of an Institutional Repository at

the University of Delaware

University of Delaware Library

Vision

University of Delaware Library administration

led by Susan Brynteson,

the May Morris Director of Libraries,

proposes an institutional repository.

Top-Down Support:Fiscal Year 2003/2004

Initial support was gained from the:

Provost Executive Council Chairs’ Caucus

and this set the groundwork for the implementation

Project Planning

Fall 2002: Library administrators attend a workshop on

planning for the implementation of an institutional repository.

Ann Wolpert of MIT speaks at the Provost’s University Forum at the University of Delaware

Project Funding

Fall 2003:Institutional Repository project developed by University of Delaware funded by the Unidel Foundation

Software Selected

DSpace software selected

DSpace is freely available as open source software

DSpace was originally designed by developers at MIT Libraries and HP Labs

Why DSpace vs. Fedora?

Pilot Phase - 2004

January 2004: Server ordered

February 2, 2004: Susan Brynteson made presentation to Provost Executive Council

March 9, 2004: Susan Brynteson and Gregg Silvis gave a presentation about Institutional Repository to CIRPM (University Computing Council)

Pilot Phase - 2004

June 2004: DSpace software installed (Version 1.2)

Spring andSummer 2004:

Five areas or “communities” at UD are selected for pilot program by Library in consultation with the Provost

Letter Sent to Department ChairSoliciting Participation in the Pilot Project

The University of Delaware Library will begin with a pilot project this summer that will include placing research reports from three different research centers and departments in the University in a central online repository using DSpace open source software on a Library server.

The Library would like to work with you and your staff to include documents that are already digitized and available from the Department of Food & Resource Economics as part of the Institutional Repository. For example, the documents of the Food & Resource Economics Department available now at the web site http://www.udel.edu/FREC/PUBS/ could be included.

I would like to schedule a meeting between Library staff and appropriate staff you designate who are involved with these reports.

The expectation is that the work on the pilot would begin in early summer 2004 and be completed by the Library by September 2004.  Policy development is part of the pilot.

During the pilot the bulk of the work to be done will be done by Library staff as part of the learning process of the pilot.  Of course, close collaboration with appropriate Food & Resource Economics or other College of Agriculture and Natural Resources staff will also occur.

Meetings with Communities

Each meeting included Project Managers, the User Support Coordinator, the Subject Selector, and department representatives identified by the Department Chair.

– June 4, 2004: Food & Resource Economics– December 14, 2004: Center for Applied Demography &

Survey Research– January 10, 2005: Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice– February 1, 2005: Department of Computer & Information

Services– February 2, 2005: Department of Biological Sciences

Pilot Phase - 2004

August 2004: First item uploaded into Repository

September 29, 2004: Susan Brynteson demonstrated Institutional Repository at Provost retreat

October 27, 2004: Working lunch meeting for pilot program participants

Pilot Phase - 2004

November 18, 2004: Gregg Silvis, Sandra Millard, and William Simpson attend the ARL SPARC workshop, “Institutional Repositories: The Next Stage”

December 2004: Institutional Repository moves to UD Library home page making it publicly available

December 6, 2004: Soft launch of Institutional Repository; production phase begins

Metadata Creation Policy

Searchable PDFs of full-text In pilot phase, DSpace Coordinator uses key

title words for metadata. In production phase, users are advised to

use title words or key words they select. Lengthy discussion of metadata policies and

practices on October 18, 2004.

Policies

Policies and guidelines developed by Library– Policies distributed in brochure and on web

Academic Department Chairs:– Approved selections submitted– Identified department contact person– Appointed coordinator to work with Library

Publicity

Brochures

Campus wide Announcementon UDaily

Web site

Organization of Key PersonnelDistributing Responsibility and Expertise

Project Managers:

Sandra MillardAssistant Director for Library Public Services

Gregg SilvisAssistant Director for Library Computing Services

Set policies and guidelines Recruit early adopters Marketing

Organization of Key PersonnelDistributing Responsibility and Expertise

Library Systems Administrators: Configuration and support of the DSpace software

– Mark Grabowski, Systems Programmer– Keith Jones, Systems Programmer

IT Network and Systems Services Staff: Configuration of the server Installation of DSpace software

Organization of Key PersonnelDistributing Responsibility and Expertise

User Support Coordinator:

William SimpsonAssistant Librarian – Reference Department● Uploads digital items● Creates metadata records● Creates “community” and “collection” home pages● Provides training and user support to each

“community” liaison● Liaison to project staff; communication bridge

between repository and project managers

Policies for Content

The Food & Resource Economics “Community”

Documents Copied Into Repository

User Interface and Searching

Content is automatically indexed by Google and other search engines

Full-text extraction and searching for MS Word, PDF, HTML, text

Issues To Address

Keeping up with documents added by the department periodically

Staying in touch with department chair Awareness of potential new content,

including data sets and text files Publicizing the resource on and off campus

to potential contributors & users

Ongoing benefits

Documents previously hard to locate are now in central, indexed server

Access by search engines, e.g. Google Permanence of information previously fugitive

and stored only in the department Increased contact with other departments

through cooperation in the project Great P.R. for the Library, the individual

Colleges and the University as a whole

Future Enhancements & New Content

Many departments have begun loading their own files

Communities have grown to 18 and counting

Keyword searching from text available

Library is seeking data sets for inclusion

Images have recently been added

Collection: Prostate Tissue Arrays, MUC1 Stain

Community: Department of Biological Sciences

Official LaunchApril 18, 2005

Provost Daniel Rich sponsors the official launch of the University of Delaware Library Institutional Repository

Provost Daniel Rich and May Morris Director of Libraries Susan Brynteson cut the ribbon at the ceremony.