Is the IR Storage or Showcase?

Abstract

Institutional repositories are often measured by data points such as their size, or who deposits, or how much is deposited, or how many times items in the IR are used. These data, however, do not put the IR in a larger context and they do not facilitate comparing repositories across institutions. Therefore, I suggest using the contents of the institution’s website as the standard or baseline that its IR should minimally meet. We could put the repository in the context of the institution by evaluating how well the IR reflects or rep-resents its host institution. In his foundational SPARC paper, Raym Crow advised that IRs “should aim to become “tangible indicators of a university’s quality ... [so as to] ... demonstrate the scientific, societal, and economic relevance of its research activities.” VTechWorks is the institutional repository for Virginia Tech, a PhD granting insti-tution with about 37,000 students and 2000 faculty. At the time of this study (February–March 2021), VTechWorks had about 84,500 items, 96% of which were open access full text while 4% were embargoed, withheld, or legacy abstract-only items. Members of the university community populate VTechWorks, including faculty, for example, who deposit their works either directly or through the integrated Elements system. Students contribute to VTechWorks, including graduate students whose ETDs, electronic theses and dissertations, arrive from the Graduate School’s online approval system, and under-graduates when courses require deposit of final projects. VTechWorks staff also deposit formally and informally, for example after reading about a publication in the online daily news or handling SWORD deposited articles.