Thursday 5 February 2009

SUETr Embedding Repositiries Event - Update

This event will take place at the University of Lincoln next week, on 10th February. We still have some places available, although the event is filling up so if you're interested please sign up soon!

A full programme for the day is available on the event wiki. Please use the online booking form if you want to book a place.

In the initial implementation of the repository, the focus is firmly on basic advocacy, getting submissions and dealing with the inevitable teething troubles of software, policies, workflows - getting the basics right. As more repositories start to mature and to build up a steadily increasing number of deposits, staff working with the IR can start to think about the next steps.

The presentations and the workshop that make up this event are all focussing on the question of 'what next?' with the institutional repository from a variety of perspectives. Julian Beckton will be talking about handling teaching and learning objects within the IR -something that IR managers are increasingly being asked to plan for in the future, and which Julian is already working on with LIROLEM. Sally Rumsey will look at integrating the repository into other area of the institutional network, as she is doing with ORA. Mary Robinson of SHERPA works on a European-focussed projects such as DRIVER and also has practical repository experience through her work on The Depot and will be looking at linking up the institutinal repository into a wider network repositories.

The workshop, run by myself and Lucy Keating of the Newcastle University EPrints, will focus on what we can do with repositories once they are populated - both for our own users and for the wider support of scholarly communications. The idea for the workshop grew out of a conversation the Lucy and I had at a recent Repositories Support Project (RSP) Focus Group, where I was inspired by Lucy's ideas for using the deposits in the IR to populate many new information and research resources. The session wil begin with a short presentation by Lucy, then we will be exploring new ideas for content use with the group. Working with UKOLN and the RSP on repositories has given me a great chance to see and learn about many different kinds of IRs and the many different approaches that are being taken in this area both here and abroad. When repository staff get together, I usually find that the ideas flow, and I suspect my hardest job of the day will be keeping us all to time!