Investigation of challenges in academic institutional repositories. A survey of academic librarians
| Published date | 16 September 2019 |
| Pages | 525-548 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-12-2017-0266 |
| Date | 16 September 2019 |
| Author | Soohyung Joo,Darra Hofman,Youngseek Kim |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information user studies,Metadata,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Investigation of challenges
in academic
institutional repositories
A survey of academic librarians
Soohyung Joo
University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Darra Hofman
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and
Youngseek Kim
University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the breadth of the challenges and issues facing
institutional repositories in academic libraries, based on a survey of academic librarians. Particularly, this
study covers the challenges and barriers related to data management facing institutional repositories.
Design/methodology/approach –The study uses a survey method to identify the relative significance of
major challenges facing institutional repositories across six dimensions, including: data, metadata,
technological requirements, user needs, ethical concerns and administrative challenges.
Findings –The results of the survey reveal that academic librarians identify limited resources, including
insufficient budget and staff, as the major factor preventing the development and/or deployment of services
in institutional repositories. The study also highlights crucial challenges in different dimensions of
institutional repositories, including the sheer amount of data, institutional support for metadata creation and
the sensitivity of data.
Originality/value –This study is one of a few studies that comprehensively identified the variety of
challenges that institutional repositories face in operating academic libraries with a focus on data
management in institutional repositories. In this study, 37 types of challenges were identified in six
dimensions of institutional repositories. More importantly, the significance of those challenges was assessed
from the perspective of academic librarians involved in institutional repository services.
Keywords Academic libraries, Library administration, Data preservation, Metadata, Institutional repositories,
Ethical issues
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Modern academic work increasingly leads to digital output –data and information in digital
formats –and institutions must find ways to collect, manage and preserve those digital
assets. Many academic libraries have built and provide their own repositories to support
users in acquiring, managing, and distributing the diverse products created by users’
scholarly activities, including research data sets ( Jain, 2011). An “institutional repository”is
a system and service model to collect, organize, store, share and preserve digital information
or knowledge assets produced by an institution (Branin, 2005). Institutional repositories
may also have responsibility for the long-term preservation, organization and distribution
as well as access to digital materials produced by the institution (Lynch, 2003). Institutional
repositories not only serve as a compelling digital place for researchers to store, manage and
preserve their scholarly materials, but also as an online venue to distribute those materials
effectively, potentially increasing the impact and visibility of research products. Library Hi Tech
Vol. 37 No. 3, 2019
pp. 525-548
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-12-2017-0266
Received 4 December 2017
Revised 14 April 2018
30 June 2018
14 September 2018
Accepted 25 September 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
The authors would like to acknowledge Dr Kyong Eun Oh and Dr Ayoung Yoon for reviewing the
initial survey items and providing their extensive feedback.
525
Academic
institutional
repositories
An institutionalrepository is a complex systemcomprising multiple featuresand functions
(Gibbons, 2009), ranging from data and information, metadata, technologies and systems,
users, ownershipand data ethics, to administration. Priorliterature has explored theseaspects
of institutional repositories individually in order to improve systems and services and to
promote participation from users( Jean et al., 2011; Devakos,2006). In a significantvein of that
literature, researchers have identified some of the potential challenges facing institutional
repositories,in particular, low participation and low motivationfor data sharing from the user
side (Armbrusterand Romary, 2010; Abrizah et al., 2015;Yang and Li, 2015). Salo explainsthe
situation facing institutional repositories bluntly:
Citation advantages and preservation have not attracted faculty participants, though current-
generation software and services offer faculty little else. Academic librarianship has not supported
repositories or their managers. Most libraries consistently under-resource and understaff
repositories, further worsening the participation gap. Software and services have been wildly out of
touch with faculty needs and the realities of repository management. (2008, p. 98)
However, developing a more holistic understanding of the challenges and barriers facing
institutional repositories is imperative if those repositories are to overcome factors that
impede users from participating in and promoting them. Such an understanding, if it yields
useful strategies for improving institutional repository participation, can eventually
improve institutional repositories’services so that they better satisfy their users. This study
intends to comprehensively explore the challenges and difficulties in multiple dimensions of
institutional repositories, based on a survey of academic librarians involved in institutional
repository services. This study particularly addresses the issues of data sharing and data
management focusing on the challenges within institutional repositories.
Literature review
Prior literature has explored different individual aspects of institutional repositories in
academic libraries. This section specifically focuses on potential issues and challenges in
building and servicing institutional repositories that literature has revealed. Also, we reviewed
prior literature concerning challenges in data sharing and management within institutional
repositories. However, each individual challenge arises in a complex, interconnected context.
In academic settings, an institutional repository’s many functions are typically required to
provide a number of services to its users and communities. Furthermore, institutional
repositories serve multiple stakeholders, including researchers, librarians, technology personnel
and administrative managers (Lynch, 2003). The existing literature provides a strong departure
point for understanding the user challenges facing institutional repositories, including studies
of barriers to user participation and studies of the ethical and legal concerns of potential users.
Researchers have tried to understand the various barriers and challenges facing
institutional repositories using survey methods. One of the primary challenges is simply
defining what institutional repositories are and do. Institutional repositories face a “host of
often contradictory demands and expectations”(Poynder, 2016, p. 4). Some, at least in the
early days of the development of institutional repositories, argued that they could serve as a
tool for “reforming the system of scholarly communication”(Crow, 2002), enabling green
open access and disrupting the primacy of publishers. Others viewed institutional
repositories as largely divorced from scholarly communications and the challenges of open
access, asserting that an institutional repository is “a set of services that a university offers
to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials
created by the institution and its community members”(Lynch, 2003). Additionally,
institutional repositories have become increasingly involved in data sharing, data
management, research data services and sometimes in traditional archival concerns,
including digital preservation. This study focused on institutional repositories in their
526
LHT
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