Digital preservation policies of the institutional repositories at Brazilian Federal Universities
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-09-2015-0170 |
| Published date | 03 April 2017 |
| Date | 03 April 2017 |
| Pages | 311-321 |
| Author | Laerte Pereira da Silva Júnior,Maria Manuel Borges |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Digital preservation policies of
the institutional repositories at
Brazilian Federal Universities
Laerte Pereira da Silva Júnior
Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil, and
Maria Manuel Borges
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to verify the implementation of digital preservation policies at the institutional
repositories (IRs) of Brazilian Federal Universities.
Design/methodology/approach –The methodology used involved the verication of the information
available in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and on the websites of the IRs, to conrm
the existence of published digital preservation policies. In this study, a sample of the 26 IRs of Brazilian
Federal Universities registered with OpenDOAR, which represents 68 per cent of these repositories, was used.
Findings –The main conclusion is that the IRs of these universities do not have any published digital
preservation policies, even though some repositories state their intention of preserving digital material in their
institutional information policy.
Originality/value –The stakeholders of IRs need to implement a programme to guide their activities to
preserve digital materials in the long term. In fact, similar to examples worldwide, this programme should take
the form of an institutional commitment outlined in a digital preservation policy. IRs at Brazilian Federal
Universities still have a long way to go to guarantee access to digital materials in the long term.
Keywords Brazil, Institutional repositories, OpenDOAR, Digital preservation policy
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Institutional repositories (IRs) are complex structures that depend on political, cultural and
technological aspects and mirror an organisation’s intellectual production. Their main
function is, therefore, to ensure worldwide availability of digital materials and, according to
Rodrigues (2009), to consider their long-term preservation. In the case of a university:
[…] at the most basic and fundamental level, an institutional repository is a recognition that the
intellectual life and scholarship of our universities will increasingly be represented, documented,
and shared in digital form, and that a primary responsibility of our universities is to exercise
stewardship over these riches: both to make them available and to preserve them (Lynch, 2003,p.2).
To this end, an IR should clearly state its intention of preservation by means of an
explicit published digital preservation policy. This should be done in such a way that
depositors could access and understand the implications of the adopted policy. Not all
IRs possess or intend to implement a commitment to digital preservation, and some
digital materials may not need to be preserved. This should be made clear to depositors
(McGovern and McKay, 2008).
There are several guidelines regarding the denition of digital preservation policies
which focus on different topics, ranging from preservation planning to rights and restriction
management, and sustainability planning, among others. In 2008, the Joint Information
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
Digital
preservation
policies
311
Received 8 September 2015
Revised 30 April 2016
Accepted 10 June 2016
TheElectronic Library
Vol.35 No. 2, 2017
pp.311-321
©Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-09-2015-0170
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