APLA 2019

Increasing recognition of the value of institutional repositories (IRs) over the past fifteen years has led to post-secondary educational institutions of all sizes creating some form of an IR to host the intellectual output of their institutions. However, the feasibility and sustainability of implementing IRs, particularly when using open source (OS) IR software, has been mostly explored by larger post-secondary institutions; the experiences of small academic institutions using OS IRs has been unexplored, save for individual case studies.

Given that post-secondary institutions in Atlantic Canadian are predominantly under 10,000 FTE and thus considered small institutions, the question of how Atlantic Canadian OS IRs compare to the rest of Canada is ripe for exploration. By breaking down the work involved in maintaining an OS IR--staffing, technical support, budgeting, and more--the unique challenges and successes of our regional IRs can be better understood. This presentation will explore the results of a research project conducted in Spring 2018, wherein Canadian post-secondary institutions were surveyed about their experiences using open source institutional repository software. Preliminary results were presented at Open Repositories, and now the experiences of repositories in Atlantic Canada are the focus.

Overall, Atlantic Canada is on par with the rest of Canada with regards to addressing the needs of an IR and of using OS software, but there are a few challenges felt more keenly in the region: smaller budgets, less experienced staff, concerns about the usability of OS IR software, and more. This presentation will examine those challenges and the underlying reasons for why we’ve excelled in some areas and are struggling with others, all with the goal of generating discussion about the opportunities available to Atlantic Canadian post-secondary IRs in order to improve our practices.