[OAI-implementers] Survey of Institutional Digital Repositories Published

[primarydat at aol.com]

Primary Research Group has published The International Survey of Institutional Digital Repositories (ISBN # 1-57440- 090-8) and would like to share some of its research results.

 

Just a few of the study’s many findings are that:

 


Forty Seven percent of repositories sampled say that the works in the repository are primarily not cataloged.


 


The average institutional digital repository spent $78,802 (US) in start up costs.


 


Close to 41% of survey participants purchased software to develop their digital repositories. US-based institutions were much more likely than others to purchase software for this purpose. 


 


The average repository in the sample has been in existence for 2.85 years, with a range of ‘just newly started’ to ten years.


 


On average, a drop more than 12% of the content in the repositories came from pre-existing repositories maintained by academic departments or some other institutional unit.


 


A sixth of the libraries in the sample used Digital Commons software, and 28% of US-based repositories used this product.


 


14.81% of the institutions in the sample plan to purchase new repository software within the next two years.


 


Only 5.56% of the repositories in the sample use blogs to publicize the repository while close to 41% use a paper promotional brochure.


 


Those repositories in the sample that required less than 500 hours of labor per year had budgets of just less than $9,000 US. The largest repositories, those requiring 3,600 hours or more annually, had budgets averaging $145,444. 


 


5.21% of the overall labor required to run the digital repositories in the sample came from academic departments not connected to the library.


 


The art, architecture and music category was considered a heavy contributor by 4.88% of the repositories in the sample, and a significant contributor by 9.76%. 41.47% considered art, architecture or music to be modest contributors. Most significant and all heavy contributors from these fields were from the USA. Once again, the BA/MA granting colleges were more likely to have significant or heavy contributors in this subject area.


 


The mean number of journal articles held by the repositories in the sample was 772 with a mean of 162.


 


4.88% of the journal articles in the repositories were subject to page view limits.


 


15.56% of the repositories in the sample were funded largely through grants.


 

The study presents data from 56 institutional digital repositories from eleven countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, South Africa, India, Turkey and other countries.  The 121-page study presents more than 300 tables of data and commentary and is based on data from higher education libraries and other institutions involved in institutional digital repository development. 

The report covers costs, budgets, software, personnel, open access policies, marketing, relations with faculty and other contributors of content, and many other issues relevant to those managing or designing an institutional digital depository. Data is broken out by geographic region, type of college or institution, and scope of the repository, defined by the number of man-hours per year needed for operation. 


James Moses, Research Director
Primary Research Group Inc.
www.primaryresearch.com



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