The newly formed Repository Network Ireland (RNI) – created by Aoife Lawton (HSE), Máire Caffrey
(Teagasc) and Stephanie Ronan (Irish Marine Institute) – was borne from the founders’ experiences
with getting their repositories harvested by the national institutional repository, RIAN. They found
that there was a gap in knowledge and support for smaller institutional repositories that could
benefit from the creation of a new networking forum where repository managers, librarians and
information professionals could meet to share information. With this in mind, RNI extended an open
invitation to their first ‘TeachMeet’ in the Long Room Hub (Trinity College Dublin) on the 25th of
October.
After a welcome from the Director of the Long Room Hub, Dr. Jurgen Barkhoff, and a brief
introduction by Máire Caffrey, the 7-minute presentations got underway.
NATALIE HARROWER – DIGITAL REPOSITORY OF IRELAND (DRI)
The DRI is an interactive national repository for contemporary, historical, social and cultural data in
Ireland. It provides a central hub for data from several Irish institutions, in order to link and preserve
the data and make it more accessible. The DRI can also be used as an educational resource for
students and the general public, supporting Open Access (to at least the metadata). Not only can the
DRI preserve data, but it can also create policies and guidelines for best policy in the field of
digitisation.
A major concern for the DRI is sustainability, particularly as the organisation relies on government
funding through the HEA. Currently, funding has been secured until 2019, but a contingency plan is
in progress for when funding ends. The DRI built the repository from the ground up through
networking and community engagement, with a series of qualitative interviews with national
institutions to gauge their approaches to digitisation. Reports and publications are available on
www.dri.ie.
Partnerships have been built internationally as well as nationally, with involvement in DARIAH,
Europeana, Decipher, ALLEA and many others. The DRI and INSIGHT will be hosting the third plenary
of the Research Data Alliance in Dublin in March 2013, which is a major international research data
event.
For more information on the resources the DRI provide, please see their website.
[Presentation slides available on RNI wiki]
BREEDA HERLIHY – UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK – Cork Open Research Archive (CORA)
UCC’s Institutional Repository CORA was set up by the Library to house and showcase research
undertaken in UCC. Previously, theses were submitted manually in bound print format and
processed by the library, with reference access only. It was decided that the online submission of etheses through CORA would provide greater visibility, access and impact. The pilot project for online
submission of theses began in 2009, and has progressed to online-only submission in September
2013.
The project hit an unexpected delay in 2012, when the Academic Council rejected the mandate with
a recommendation that an opt-out progress be incorporated. This may have been due to concerns
about copyright and publication from certain disciplines in the university. In any case, building an
opt-out process involved considerable customisation and the creation of 2 separate workflows.
For the Opt In process, the student registers with CORA – submits to supervisor – work is reviewed –
sent to Graduate Studies Office – Approved – Sent to Library – Loaded up to CORA. The student
uploads the abstract and thesis. Metadata is imported from CORA to the library catalogue. (CORA
uses DSPACE as a platform, which uses Dublin Core for its metadata. The Library system uses MARC
records).
In the Opt Out system, only the abstract and metadata are submitted to the library, and the
supervisor step is skipped.
So far, the system has been successful, and allows greater access to theses for students and
researchers at UCC. Full text items on CORA are harvested by RIAN.
AOIFE LAWTON – HSE – LENUS
In this presentation, Aoife Lawton gave some helpful advice on setting up a repository in the unique
form of a baking recipe!
The HSE’s repository LENUS was established to store health-related reports, research and
publications in order to provide a centralised knowledge base for medical researchers and clinical
practitioners. Ideally, to set up a good repository, you should have a team consisting of a repository
manager, at least two qualified librarians on the project team, and a clinical champion to launch and
promote the repository. Remember the SPARC method – Scholarly, Perpetual, Institutionally
defined, Interoperable and Open Access. The project manager should establish a clear vision and
mission statement, strategic plan and content criteria policy. The content should be organised to
mimic that of RIAN’s, to make the harvesting procedure smoother. Marketing is also very important
– being Web 2.0 enabled (e.g. having a Twitter account and using other social media) can help to
promote the repository. Tools such as Google Analytics are very useful to measure the progress of
the repository. Finally, check that the repository is serving its users well by conducting surveys or
focus groups on occasion.
[Presentation slides available on RNI wiki]
JOSEPH GREEN – UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN – RESEARCH REPOSITORY UCD & RIAN ADVISOR
Joseph Green’s presentation focussed mainly on how to join RIAN, and started with two simple
statements: get your repository harvestable, then get RIAN to harvest you!
To get your repository harvestable, it is advisable to:
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Use a recognisable software package such as DSpace, Eprints, Fedora or Digital Commons
Plan your collections – think about how they will be organised. Look at how RIAN is currently
structure to get an idea of how you should organise your own repository to match up.
Plan metadata fields and consistently apply them
Plan what data goes in, and how it is entered e.g. keywords
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Remember that RIAN only takes full text and scholarly material
Create a list of RIAN fields and pair them with your own (can be literal or programmatic).
Excel can be useful for this purpose. Full text instructions can be translated to programming
language fairly easily.
Build an OAI-PMH crosswalk called rian_dc. You can use basic Java for DSpace or Perl for
EPrints.
Once you have completed the crosswalk to make your fields match RIAN’s format, Enovation
Services (the company hosting RIAN’s site) can create an institution page on RIAN and
perform a test harvest to see if it worked. If everything is in order, a full harvest will follow.
To get RIAN to harvest you, you will need to contact the chair of the Irish University Association
Librarian’s Group (currently John Cox of NUIG). Much needed help is at hand for RIAN new joiners
from joseph.green@ucd.ie, sinead.keogh@ul.ie and fran.callaghan@dcu.ie. You can also consult
Repositories Support Ireland on http://www.resupie.ie/moodle and join the mailing list for updates.
JANE BURNS
CHILDREN’S UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL TEMPLE STREET
The Social Work department at CUH Temple Street was badly in need of a centralised, easy to access
and easy to search repository to store research material and references. Unfortunately, they had no
money to finance this, so the challenge was to find a way to set up a repository without any budget.
Jane Burns volunteered to be the project manager, and recruited four Library and Information
Studies volunteers to assist her. Work commenced on scoping and organising the material; not an
easy task given the paper-based nature of the work. Classification schemes and file naming
conventions were established. After some trial and error (often due to the old infrastructure of
Temple Street), Zotero was identified as a suitable free resource. It had to be completely stand-alone
due to privacy concerns, so there are strict limits on access to the Zotero system. Of necessity, it is
limited to in-house access and sharing rather than full OA.
Despite having no budget, the team were able to create a fully functional in-house repository, with
supporting documentation.
[Presentation slides available on RNI wiki]
YVONNE DESMOND
DUBLIN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
ARROW
Yvonne Desmond of DIT encouraged us to ‘think outside the box’ and look at repositories as a way to
engage students and faculty. The ARROW@DIT repository hosts a huge variety of material, including
journals such as the Irish Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage and the Irish Journal of
Academic Practice to name but two. Given that DIT has strong culinary arts school, the Gastronomy
Archive is a popular resource. DIT will be hosting the Dublin Gastronomy Symposium in 2014.
Students are encouraged to publish their material on the repository as a step-up in their academic
career, as well as being a means of preserving their work.
The focal point of the ARROW homepage is the Discipline Wheel – a bright and accessible icon
designed to allow easy browsing of the collections on the repository. The sunwheel is intuitively
designed, but is also accompanied by a YouTube tutorial to explain how to navigate it. A massive 613
disciplines are covered, divided into 10 main categories.
GARY CULLEN
CONNACHT-ULSTER ALLIANCE
LKIT, GMIT, IT SLIGO
Gary Cullen represented the newly formed Connacht-Ulster Alliance, a strategic alliance between
the Institutes of Technology in Letterkenny, Galway/Mayo and Sligo. Their ultimate goal is to be redesignated as a Technological University. A central repository will be part of this alliance, and Gary
was hoping that the RNI TeachMeet would give him an opportunity to ask questions and seek advice
on how to set up a repository from scratch.
LIAM O’DWYER
ST. PATRICK’S COLLEGE, DRUMCONDRA
St. Patrick’s College mainly concentrates on Education and the Humanities, so the material on the
repository will consist mainly of publications and theses, and specialised projects in Art, Music, and
the Irish Language (one example being a collection of photos of children’s school projects). In the
initial stages of planning, a working group was set up with members of the Library, IT and Research.
This group reports to a management committee within St. Patrick’s College. A staff survey was
conducted to explore opinions on IR’s. As was the case in UCC, staff voiced concerns about copyright
and the impact on publication. There was a view that publishing on the repository could negatively
impact small or societal publications. Quality control was also flagged as a potential issue. The survey
highlighted varying levels of engagement and knowledge on the subject of repositories and OA.
After much consideration, St. Patrick’s College have opted for a Discovery Garden system, created by
the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada specifically for hosting institutional repositories. It’s
an Islandora system, modelled on Fedora, Drupal front-ended, open-source and cloud-based.
When the repository is up and running, St. Patrick’s College are hoping to build in an e-submission
policy for theses. To build the collection, there will be a retrospective call for staff publications.
Existing staff publications must be collated and publishers contacted. This in itself is a timeconsuming and difficult task, especially given the fact that not all Irish publications are on
SHERPA/ROMEO and can be difficult to track down.
NIAMH BRENNAN
TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
TARA and edeposit
Niamh Brennan (TCD) spoke about how the material on your Institutional Repository can become
visible not just nationally, but internationally. Institutions should make themselves aware of
European collaborations such as OpenAIRE, which holds EU funded papers. No Irish institutions are
on it as yet, but this will change soon. There is a procedure for making works OpenAIRE compliant –
contact Niamh for more information. Another example of a European collaboration is PEER
(Publishing and the Ecology of European Research). Trinity College’s TARA is a partner repository.
Major academic publishing companies such as Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and Taylor Francis etc. have
provided content. Interestingly, they found that it didn’t detract from their business but rather
added to it.
Web analytics such as Google Analytics can be very useful to monitor traffic, and the results can be
surprising. (the example given was the variety of countries accessing the book “Sin, Sheep and
Scotsmen” by WE Vaughan!) It can be a powerful marketing tool to show lecturers how their work is
reaching new and varied audiences. The impact of a repository can be far reaching, and it can have
societal, economic and cultural influences.
STEPHANIE RONAN
IRISH MARINE INSTITUTE
OAR
Stephanie Ronan of the IMI offered some handy advice on joining RIAN based on recent experience.
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Team up with others with similar interests and goals : a buddy system provides much
needed help and support
Factor in a considerable amount of time to organise a meeting with the RIAN Steering Group
Prepare for lots of tests and checks, particularly if developers are inexperienced
Accumulate a budget for RIAN and OpenAIRE
Run in-house if possible
Note that the subject line isn’t mandatory in DSpace but is for RIAN. Take note of other
mandatory fields on RIAN.
AIMS AND GOALS OF RNI
The TeachMeet finished with an open discussion in groups to talk about the aims and goals of the
RNI.
AIMS
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To combine expertise and support each other
Build contacts
Feed into National Policy
Share information
Create best practice
Develop technical skills
Provide practical support
Increase marketing of IRs
In terms of technical skills, it might be useful to set up workshops or webinars on topics such as:
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Copyright
Open Access Publishing
Web Analytics / Google Analytics
Ensuring repository fields match up to those on RIAN : Crosswalks.
The groups also discussed which type of forum might be suitable for the RNI – it would need to be
private, but also allow conversations. Possibilities include the wiki, a LinkedIn group or maybe a
Wordpress discussion forum. As regards the formality of the group, it was agreed that it should be
formal enough to have assigned roles but not so formal as to be a society etc. Further meetings will
take place in 2014, and not necessarily in Dublin, given the range of institutions present.