Is the IR Storage or Showcase?

Abstract

IRs give their home institutions both a digital library and a showcase, but do IRs accurately reflect their institutions? Is the IR instead an isolated storage archive disconnected from its home institution? Assessing IRs from the perspective of their institutions’ scholarly output and activities is a little used frame of reference. This study used Google to search the IR and the institution’s website for words authors used when writing about Indigenous People, LatinX and LGBTQ. This study also searched the IR directly to compare terms in graduate students’ ETDs and faculty peer reviewed publications. Let’s talk about IRs and whether they reflect their institutions’ “quality and … research activities” as Raym Crow suggested in 2002 as well as hold an historically inclusive record as Sam Winn admonished in 2017. Let’s discuss assessing IRs and whether using select microcosms and authors’ vocabularies is an appropriate way to measure correlation within the institution.