Does the Repository Reflect the Institution? [links]

Abstract

The IR gives the university both a digital library and a showcase so it should accurately reflect its home institution. Assessing IRs from the perspective of its resources, however, is an as yet unused frame of reference. The goal of this initial study was to investigate whether the IR represents the scholarship and activities of its home institution by comparing a microcosm of the IR to the same microcosm at the institution. The IR can be correlated with the university by using a controlled vocabulary to search each source and comparing the percentage of hits. This study looked at VTechWorks, the IR at Virginia Tech, as a whole and through three lenses, that of graduate students’ ETDs, the faculty’s scholarly publications, and the academic units’ web-accessible publications. Using the LGBTQ microcosm, the percentage of hits for a controlled vocabulary showed a good correlation, demonstrating that the IR is representative of the university for this microcosm. Can we extrapolate and say this IR accurately represents its university?