Rethinking Institutional Repositories: Innovations in Management, Collections, and Inclusion

As an R2: Doctoral University, Montclair State University publishes an abundance of books and research conducted by its many talented faculty and staff. To make their works available to those who may be interested in their topics, University Libraries houses an institutional repository consisting of these many works known as Digital Commons. Although Digital Commons launched publicly in April 2018, there was a need to measure awareness, and ease of use, among Montclair faculty and staff.

To find out, Research Services Librarian Darren Sweeper and Market Research Analyst (former Repository Coordinator and Research & Projects Specialist) Karen Ramsden conducted a study titled, Establishing and Promoting an Institutional Repository and Research Information Management System.

From their abstract, “The purpose of this paper is to share the experiences and to highlight lessons learned from the establishment of the institutional repository (IR) while collaborating in a state-wide initiative to showcase the scholarly output of New Jersey researchers.”

At the time of this study, Digital Commons had existed for about 3 – 4 years. While the number of views and downloads of each paper is tracked by the repository, it was unknown as to how well the existence of it has dispersed amongst faculty and staff on campus. They also wanted to learn what users already knew about the institutional repository and if they had an understanding of why it existed. To make this determination, the research consisted of conducting literature reviews, creating user personas, and completing qualitative in-depth interviews to learn from real users about their knowledge of, and experience with Digital Commons.

Being such a valuable set of research, they were invited to publish the study as a chapter in the book Rethinking Institutional Repositories: Innovations in Management, Collections, and Inclusion titled “I Don’t Have the Time or Really Understand What This Is! Examining Faculty’s Motivation to Use (or not) Montclair State University’s Institutional Repository”.

Want to learn more about their research and the results? Read their paper and more in University Libraries Digital Commons.