ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
Best Practices in Institutional Repositories in Indian Universities and
Research Institute
Madaiah Krishnamurthy
DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute,
Bangalore 560059
mkrishna_murthy@hotmail.com
Talawar.V.G
University of Mysore
Mysore,India
vgt@gmail.com
Jagirdar
NAAC
Bangalore
jagirih@gmail.com
Abstract
The open access movement has gained increasing power as the part of global scholarly
communication by enabling researchers, access to information that is free available and
sharable online. Although, the importance of the matter is being conceived in developing
countries like India. Institutional Repositories (IR) is an electronic system that captures,
preserves and provides access to digital work products of community. IR has been developed
many institute in India to help provide access to quality information services for students and
faculty using DSpace. This study limited to the University and other national institutes
websites. The websites that were retrieved with the help of search engines and those who have
registered with Open DOAR and ROAR and also searched in Cross Archive Search Service for
Indian Repositories (CASSIR). Analysis has been done based on 5 elements viz., institutions,
URL, IR software, coverage, metadata . In this study only 25 institutes in India have been
registered and using Dspace software and only 3 institutes have E-prints. These Open access
repositories store number of scholarly publications digital format. These repositories contain
research publications, conference papers, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations
related to subject scope of their organization. This paper reviews the best practices of
software to adopt in day-to-day activities of the library. It describes the continuing evolving
road map of its features, which is becoming more like hybrid vehicle employing the open
source software. These concepts and their benefits and importance of libraries are discussed.
Benefits include lower costs, greater accessibility and better prospects for long-term
preservation of scholarly works. This paper concludes formulating the best practice of digital
library for informational professionals of the 21st century.
1. Introduction: New Scholarly Publishing Paradigm
Institutional repositories (IRs) adopt the same open-access and interoperable framework as
pre-print archives, but rather than being discipline-based, represent the wide range of research
output produced by one institution. The digital revolution has affected how scholars create,
communicate and preserve new knowledge. While the technologies exist for scholars to
manage their own digital content, faculty are typically best at creating, not preserving, new
knowledge. The long-term preservation of information in digital form is one of the most
important problems faced by the cultural heritage professions in the early twenty first century.
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
Developments in information and communication hold great potential for the advancement of
knowledge and the good human kind through the open access of scholarly literature. The Open
access movement has gained increasing power as the part of global scholarly communication
by enabling researcher’s access information that is freely available and sharable online.
Institutional Repositories (IRs) are practical cost effective and strategic means for universities /
institutions to build partnership with their faculty to advance scholarly communication. Recent
advances in information technology have provided new ways of dealing with information in
academic libraries. The explosion of the web, the Internet and information technology in
general has created challenges and has provided huge opportunities for those working in
library and information profession in higher education. Open source software has enabled
those in many countries around the world to develop digital library systems and the open
access movement provides researchers and students the accessibility to current literature and
research outputs (Krishnamurthy, 2007).
2. Importance of Institutional Repositories
IRs in universities generally include pre-prints of journal articles, seminar papers, technical
reports, research data, theses, dissertations, work in progress, important print and image
collections, teaching and learning materials, and other materials, documenting the history of
the institution. For several years, universities and R& D institutions have been primarily
responsible for creation of new knowledge by investigating activities. These are in the form of
theses, dissertations, project reports, courseware, pre-prints, etc. These documents carries huge
amount of valuable data and material which is probably not available in any published
resource. Unfortunately these are inaccessible in the absence of appropriate mechanisms such
as bibliographic control access. Even those resources that eventually appear in print and are
published may still be in accessible to a vast majority of institutions due to the high cost of
subscription to the source material in which they are published. IRs are widely seen as one way
of enhancing wider access to research carried out using public funds while at the same time
improve visibility of research especially for developing countries.
Thus, for
universities/institutions, IRs are marketing tools, communicating available expertise and
quality by showcasing output of faculty and research scholars, public service projects, and
other activities and collection. IRs also complements existing metrics for gauging institutional
productivity and prestige. While the increased visibility reflects a high quality of scholarship,
this demonstration that value can also translate into tangible benefits, including attracting
funding from public and private sources increasing the institution’s status and reputation. With
the availability of advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) and by
building up necessary infrastructure in India, particularly in academic institutes, this will
become an active contributor to global open access literature. IRs in universities generally
include pre-prints of journal articles, seminar papers, technical reports, research data, theses,
dissertations, work in progress, important print and image collections, teaching and learning
materials, and materials documenting the history of the institution.
3. Literature Review
A general study reviews on Institutional Repositories in developing countries like India and
its benefits have been provided by many authors. A recent study on open access initiatives in
India-an evaluative by Liela Fernadez(2006) carried out briefly on implementation of
Institutional Repositories in many organizations like IISc,(E-prints) INFLIBNET,(DSpace)
Indian Statistical Institute,(DSpace) etc,. And the authors from these organizations have
published articles on institutional repositories as case studies for their showcase of research
output. Richard Johnson (2006) Director at the United Kingdom's scholarly publishing and
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), defined a digital IR as “any collection of digital
material hosted, owned or controlled, or disseminated by a college or university, irrespective of
purpose or provenance. Kashimura (2007) describes digital archive is a system for preserving
valuable digital information obtained by the digitization of cultural material in a secure and
reliable manner and for using it effectively. Kaur (2007) says that, today, most of the cultural
and heritage, materials are being converted into digitized forms to provide immediate
accessibility anywhere in the world. One feature that all digital libraries share is a system of
organization or management. Arms (2000) defines “digital library” to mean “a managed
collections of information, with associated services, where the information is stored in digital
formats and accessible over a network. Chang (2003) defines an institutional repository as a
new method for capturing, collecting, managing, disseminating, and preserving scholarly
publications created in digital form by the constituent members of an institution. The term was
coined by Scholarly Publishing for Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC), and IR s have
been defined by SPARC as 'digital collections capturing and preserving the intellectual output
of a single or multi university community (Crow , 2002). The impetus for IR could be said to
have emerged the Open Archive Initiatives (OAI) in 1999. This application to institutional
archives, or repositories, was reinforced with the emergence of IR software. A large number of
repositories have been built using software such as E-prints, DSpace and other software in
India and many of the studies on IR carried out to evaluate studies on IR in India (Ghosh and
Das, 2007). It provides insight of the status on Institutional Repositories.
4. Application of ICT in India
Rapid advances in ICTs and its applications are dramatically affecting economic and social
activities, as well as the acquisition, dissemination and use of knowledge (Carlo and Utz,
2005). The use of ICTs is reducing transaction costs and lowering the barriers of time and
space, allowing the mass production of customized goods and services. With ICT use
becoming all pervasive and its impacts are transformational, it has become an essential
backbone of the knowledge society. The information infrastructure in a country consists of
telecommunication networks, strategic information systems. India, thus, has already developed
a vision and strategies to address its transition to the knowledge society. In the main, its
initiatives have however, largely been developed around three functional pillars of the
knowledge economy (education, innovation, and ICTs). Innovation system plays an important
role in acquiring, creating, adopting, and disseminating knowledge, which is crucial for success
in the knowledge society (Carlo ,D and Anuja, U 2005). The innovation system in any country
consists of institutions, and procedures that affect how the country acquire, creates,
dissemination, and use knowledge. Keeping in mind a few institutions have been built
repositories using software such as Dspace, E-prints, and GSDL and other software in India.
5. Scope and Methodology
This study is limited to the websites of University and other national institutes. The
websites were retrieved with the help of search engines; those which were registered with
Open DOAR and ROAR and were also searched in Cross Archive Search Service for Indian
Repositories (CASSIR). Five elements have been considerd for analysis, i.e., institutions, URL,
IR software, coverage, metadata. In this study, it was observed that only 25 institutes in India
have been registered and using Dspace software and 3 institutes are E-prints. Some of the
institutes like ISRO, ECIL and other defense organizations are on intranet (See Table
1&2).These Open access repositories store number of scholarly publications in digital format.
Thus, CASSIR serves a functionality of cross searching of repositories. These repositories
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
contain research publications, conference papers, conference proceedings, theses and
dissertations related to subject scope of their organization.
5.1. Salient Features
DSpace is a digital library system designed to capture, store, index, preserve, and to
redistribute the intellectual output of a university’s research faculty in digital formats
(www.dspace.org). It was developed jointly by Hewlett Packard (HP) Laboratories and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology libraries. The DSpace architecture consists of three
layers: application layer; business layer; storage layer. The application layer covers the
interface to the systems, the web and user and interface and batch loader, in particular. The
business layer contains the DSpace specific functionality, work flow, content management,
administration, and search and browse modules. The storage layer was implemented using the
relational database management system Postgre SQL. Each module has a well-documented
API and all original code in the Java programming language. The other technological
infrastructure includes a web server and Java servlet engine (Apache and Tomcat, both from
the Apache Foundation); Jena (an RDF toolkit from HP labs), and OAICat (from OCLC). The
system is available on Source Forge, linked from both the DSpace informational website and
the HP labs site (Smith et al., 2003). Sutradhar (2006) describes the development of an
institutional repository at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur using DSpace.
OpenDOAR provides details of 243 repositories worldwide using DSpace. Most are in the US
(52), Japan (47), the UK (23), India (14) and the rest in other countries. Interestingly,
Sutradhar (2006) in his study pointed out that that of the total 243 repositories of the world ,
there were only 14 (6%) repositories developed in India. However, the present study finds
that the number has significantly increased to 29. The salient feature and other characteristics
of the IRs are as follows.
6. Analysis
In this study we have studied 29 repositories, which stored publications such as journal
articles, case studies, conference paper, conference proceedings, research reports, books and
learning materials. The ETD @ IIsc is an institutionally acclaimed open access theses and
dissertations repository of the Indian Institute of Science, a joint service of the National Centre
for Science Information (NCSI) and the IISC library. It stands 82nd rank in world repositories.
This repository disseminates and preserves high quality theses of the Indian Institute of
Science. This repository is compliant to OAI-PMH (Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) and
indexed in the CASSIR (Cross Archive search service for Indian Repositories), OAIster and
OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories). The record display page of individual
theses provides links to full-text objects, along with descriptive metadata, such as title, author,
subject, keywords, date of submission, publisher, abstract, URL, and the name of the
collection. Indian Statistical Institute, Librarian’s Digital Library deals collections of Library
and Information Science stands 180th rank of world repositories which covers, collection of
papers, presentation and abstract of library and Information Science. The Search Digital
Libraries (SDL) is a metadata harvesting service for open access repositories in the area of
Library and Information science. The National Institute of Technology Rourkela, one of the
national Institutes of Technology in the country, is engaged in higher education and research
activities in the areas of engineering, technologies and applied sciences. This institute’s
repository collects preserves and disseminates intellectual outputs of the host institution to the
global audience. At present it preserves conference papers, journal articles, preprints and theses
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
authored by NITR researchers and faculty members. This repository is compliant to OAI-PMH
and indexed in the CASSIR , OAI DOAR . Regarding IITs , these repositories strive to
become a reliable and open access scholarly communication channels for disseminating
publications produced by the research community in this institutes.. The subject coverage of
this repository is applied science, engineering and technology areas. The Indian Institute of
Astrophysics (IIAP) is a premier research institution devoted to research in astronomy,
astrophysics and related physics. It stands 218th rank in the world repository. The IIAP
repository is the open access institutional repository, developed to capture, disseminate and
preserve research publication of the IIAP. It includes old records, manuscripts, publications
and photographs. This repository is compliant to OAI-PMH and indexed in the CASSIR,
OAIster and OpenDOAR. The Indian Institute Management is involved in academic and
sponsored research in the interdisciplinary areas of economics, management, trade, commerce,
industries and related areas. This institutional repository provides open access archiving
facilitates to the IIMK communities such as faculty member, students and researchers. It
covers book reviews, case studies, journal articles, conference papers, working paper and
conference proceedings in the areas of management, business, economics, communications and
social science. The Raman Research Institute is a premier research centre in the area of
physical science. The RRI Digital Repository is an institutional repository providing
worldwide access to the research publications, contributed by the faculty members and
scholars. It consists of the annual reports, lectures and newspaper clippings. This repository is
compliant to OAI-PMH and indexed in the CASSIR, OAIster and OpenDOAR. The
Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) centre, India is an autonomous Inter
University Centre of University Grants Commission, involved in creating information
infrastructure for academic and research institutions, particularly for universities and colleges
in India. This Institution repository contains proceedings of CALIBER and PLANNER. It also
provides full text access to collections such as, dArchive India (Digital Academic and Research
content for Value Education), news clippings about INFLIBNET, course materials, library
automation materials. This IR also compliant with OAI-Metadata Harvesting Protocol. Most
of these operate on UNIX/Linux operating system platform. Typical functionality supported by
these systems includes; user registration; document submission; approval/moderation of
submitted documents; archiving; dissemination; and administration.
IRs are a practical, cost effective, and strategic means for universities to build partnership
with their faculty to advance scholarly communication. According to Savenije (2010) IRs are
built on growing faculty practices of posting research output online, often on personal
websites, but also on institutional websites or in disciplinary repositories suggesting an
increasing desire for expanded exposure of, and access to their work. Further, IRs allow
universities to offer secure digital hosting and archiving services combined with more effective
web dissemination, while the universities can benefit from the enhanced visibility of their
research outputs and the prestige that this confers. Unfortunately, however, the growth of IRs
in Indian universities has not been of the desired level and order. While the elite institutions
such as IISc, the IITs and a few elite universities have been quick to build IRs, a very large
number of universities, especially the state universities, colleges and institutions of higher
education are yet to initiate any major action in building IRs. According to a recent paper
(Tilak, Jandhyala B.G. 2009), there are as many as 421 universities (including deemed
universities) and over 18000 colleges (including over 5000 professional colleges) in the
country. Needless to say, that a substantial portion of research being carried out in these
institutions remains inaccessible if efforts are not initiated to develop channels such as IRs to
enhance the visibility of scholarly output of these institutions. There are several factors that
have contributed to this state of affairs. Many of these universities and colleges may be lacking
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
the expertise or resources it takes to initiate IRs. India is also a multilingual country with
several scripts being used. A substantial amount of the research output in Indian universities is
in the regional languages. Fortunately, today we have access to digital publishing technologies,
global networking, enabling interoperability protocols and metadata standards, all of which
have contributed to providing practical and cost-effective technical solutions that can be
implemented even by small institutions. While institutional repositories centralize, preserve,
and make accessible an institutions intellectual output, at the same time they also form a part
of a global system of distributed, inter operable repositories providing the foundation for a new
disaggregated model. Digital publishing and networking technologies harnessed by an
increasingly dissatisfied library market as well as by authors themselves are now driving
fundamental changes in universities. For countries such as India that are still far behind
tapping into and making effective use of existing IR technologies.
Table 1. IR Software used in India
Sl
N
o
1
Institutions
URL
Aryabhatta Research
Institute of
Observational Science
Asia Pacific Institute of
Management Studies
Bangabondhu Shekh
Mujib Medical
University
Bangalore Management
Academy
Guru Gobind Singh
Indraprastha University
http://202.141.125.171:808
0/jspui/
Dspace
Science and
Technology
OAI-PMH
http://www.dspace.org/ww
w.asiapacific.edu/
http://sunzil.lib.bku.hk/hkut
o/index/jsp
Dspace
Management
Studies
Medical
Science
OAI-PMH
http://www.bma.ac.in:8080
/dspace/
http://dspace.ipu.ernet.in:80
80/
Dspace
Management
OAI-PMH
Dspace
multidisciplin
ary
OAI-PMH
6
ICFAI business School,
Ahmedabad
http://202.131.96.59:8080/d
space
Dspace
Management
OAI-PMH
7
IGNCA
Heritage
OAI-PMH
8
Indian Institute of
Astrophysics
IIM ,Khozikode
http://tdil.mit.gov.in/coilnet
/ignca/
http://prints.iiap.res.in/
DSpace
Astronomy
OAI-PMH
http://dspace.iimk.ac.in
Dspace
Management
OAI-PMH
OAI-ster
Google,AR
C (Unified
Cross
archive
earch
OAI-PMH
2
3
4
5
9
Software
Dspace
Coverage
10
Indian Institute of
Science
http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/
E-prints
Science and
Technology
11
http://dspace.library.iitb.ac.
in/dapce/
http://eprint.iitd.ac.in/
Dspace
Engineering
12
Indian Institute of
Technology, Mumbai
IIT Delhi
E-prints
13
Indira Gandhi Institute
http://oii.igidir.ac.in:8080/d
Dspace
Engineering ,
allied
science
Economics
Metadata
OAI-PMH
OAI-PMH
OAI-PMH
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
14
15
of Development
Research
sapce
and social
science
Indian Statistical
Institute
INFLIBNET(UGC)
http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/
Dspace
http://dspace.inflibnet.ac.in/
Dsapce
Library and
Inf Science
Multi
disciplinary
OAI-PMH
OAI-PMH
Table 2. IR Software in India
Sl
No
16
Institutions
URL
Software
Institute of
Mathematical Science
http://in.arxiv.org/
E-prints
17
NAL
http://nal-ir.nal.res.in/
Dspace
18
NCCR,IIT Madras
http://203.199.213.48
E-prints
19
National Institute of
Technology, Rourkela
http://dspace.nitrkl.ac.in/ds
pace/
DSpace
20
National Chemical
Laboratory
http://dspace.ncl.res.in/dsp
ace
Dspace
21
National Institute of
Oceanography
http://drs.nio.org.drs
Dspace
22
National Institute of
Science
Communication and
Information
Resources,New Delhi
National Institute of
Technology, Rourkela
http://nsdl.niscair.res.in
24
25
Coverage
Metadata
Physics,
mathematics,
Computer
Science
Aero
Engineering
OAI-PMH
Energy
Sources, nano
Materials
Engineering/T
echnology
OAI-PMH
Chemistry and
Biological
Science
Marine
science
OAI-PMH
Dspace
Unknown
OAI-PMH
http://dspace.nitrkl.ac.in/ds
pace/
DSpace
Engineering/T
echnology
OAI-PMH
Raman Research
Institute,
http://dspace.rri.res.in/
DSpace
Physics,
Astrophysics
OAI-PMH
School of
Communication and
Management Studies
(SCMS) Cochin
Sree Narayana
Gurukulam College of
Engineering
http://dspace.scmsgroup.or
g
DSpace
Management
OAI-PMH
http://dspace.sngee.ac..in
Dsapce
Engineering
OAI-PMH
27
Thapar
University,Patiala
http://dspace.thapar.edu:80
80/dspace/
Dsapce
Unknown
OAI-PMH
28
University of
Hyderabad
http://www.diglib.uohyd.er
net.in/dspace
Dspace
Multi
disciplinary
OAI-PMH
23
26
OOAI-PMH
OAI-PMH
OAI-PMH
ICoASL 2011: Branding & Marketing, &Strategic Direction, Best Practices & Performance Evaluation of
Special Library Services
29
University of Mysore
http://dspace.vidyanidhi.or
g/in:8080/dspace/
Dspace
Multidisciplin
ary
OAIster-
7. Conclusion
Open access to knowledge and information as we may see from this listing has far to go in
India. With the availability of advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs)
and by building up necessary infrastructure in India, particularly in academic institutes, this
will becomes an active contributor to global open access literature. It is largely achievable is a
country where policy frame works, institutional frameworks, information infrastructure, trained
manpower, and financial resources are adequatelyavailable. The information infrastructure in
a country consists of telecommunications network, strategic information systems, policy and
legal frameworks affecting their deployment, as well as skilled human resources needed to
develop and use it. To develop strong information infrastructure, it is necessary to mobilize the
many stakeholders that are involved in its deployment and use; government, business,
individual users, the telecommunications and information service providers and so on. IRs in
universities generally include pre-prints of journal articles, seminar papers, technical reports,
research data, theses, dissertations, work in progress, important print and image collections,
teaching and learning materials, and materials documenting the history of the institution.
Institutional Repositories (IR) are digital collections that capture and preserve the intellectual
output of a single or multi- university community. IR s expands access to research, facilitate
control over the research output of universities and institutions of national importance, and
provide a sustainable management system for digital content.
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