Institutional repository infrastructure: a survey of Ghanaian public universities
| Date | 04 April 2023 |
| Pages | 1-7 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/CC-11-2022-0038 |
| Published date | 04 April 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Collection building & management |
| Author | Osman Imoro,Nampombe Saurombe |
Institutional repository infrastructure: a survey
of Ghanaian public universities
Osman Imoro
Department of Information Science, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa and Sam Jonah Library,
University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, and
Nampombe Saurombe
Department of Information Science, University of South Africa - Muckleneuk Campus, Pretoria, South Africa
Abstract
Purpose –Ghanaian public universities have fully embraced the concept of open access. This is evident in the increasing numbers of institutional
repositories (IRs) by universities in Ghana. However, to ensure the sustainability of these IRs, it is vital the current IR infrastru cture is capable of
responding to current and future demands. The purpose of this study is to investigate the sustainability of the current IR infrastructure of public
universities in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach –The convergent parallel mixed methods design was adopted. A total of 830 respondents comprising IR
managers, library staff (digitisation and e-resources units), postgraduate students, lecturers and university librarians from five publi c universities in
Ghana were sampled for this study. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview guide were the main instruments used for data collec tion.
Findings –The findings of this study revealed that the IR infrastructure of public universities in Ghana is robust and has the capacity to expand
when the need arises. However, funding, cost of internet connectivity, personnel and erratic power supply were identified as major challenges
confronting IRs in Ghana.
Originality/value –This study highlighted Ghana’s existing IR infrastructure situation. This study is a significant contribution to the literature from
West Africa because there is not much research on IR infrastructure from this part of the world.
Keywords ICT, Institutional repositories, Open access, Infrastructure, Ghana, Dspace
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Repositories emerged out of human efforts to organiserecords
for storage, preservation and long-term use. Repositories have
long existed in the form of libraries, museums and archives
(Huvila, 2016;Torres, 2016). Fromthe era of clay tablets and
papyrus to books and e-resources, technological innovations
have shaped the nature and format of the collections stored
by these repositories; institutional repositories (IRs) are no
exception.
The concept of IRs began with the launch of the DSpace
project in 2000 (Callicott et al., 2016;Mackenzie, 2002).
However, it gained global attention as a result of global open
access (OA) initiatives such as the Budapest OA Initiative in
2002, Berlin Declaration on OA to Knowledge in the Sciences
and Humanities in 2003 and Bethesda Statement on OA
Publishing in 2003 that sought to remove all access barriers
to scholarly and scientific information (Kodua-Ntim and
Fombad, 2020;Callicottet al.,2016).Since then, the growth of
IRs has soared partlybecause of the rapid growth of e-resources
and its attendant challenges to usage, management and
preservation (Ternenge and Kashimana, 2019;Tiwari and
Gandotra, 2018).
In an era of digital publishing and archiving, academic
and research institutions are increasingly recognising IRs
as an important component of modern-day scholarly
communication, preservation and dissemination (Saini, 2018).
While most academic and scholarly databases can only be accessed
only by subscription, research papers archived in IRs are totally
free (Tsay et al., 2017). The Alfa Network Babel Library (2007:63)
believes that the free availability or access to the content of IRs is a
feature that could help enhance collaboration among both local
and international research institutions seeking to expand the
frontier of knowledge through open science and data.
Contextual setting
There is increased adoption of IRs by universities in Ghana.
Currently, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
Technology, University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast,
The current issue and full text archiveof this journal is available on Emerald
Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/2514-9326.htm
Collection and Curation
43/1 (2024) 1–7
Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2514-9326]
[DOI 10.1108/CC-11-2022-0038]
© Osman Imoro and Nampombe Saurombe. Published by Emerald
Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute,
translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial &
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original
publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at
http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Received 16 November 2022
Revised 16 February 2023
Accepted 13 March 2023
1
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