Institutional Repositories, Policies, and Disruption
Date
2007-04-02
DOI
Authors
Lindahl, David
Bell, Suzanne
Gibbons, Susan
Foster, Nancy Fried
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
For many librarians, institutional repositories (IRs) promised significant change for academic
libraries. We envisioned enlarging collection development scope to include locally produced
scholarship and an expansion of library services to embrace scholarly publication and
distribution. However, at the University of Rochester, as at many other institutions, this
transformational technology was introduced in the conservative, controlled manner
associated with stereotypical librarian culture, and so these expected changes never
materialized. In this case study, we focus on the creation of our institutional repository (a
potentially disruptive technology) and how its success was hampered by our organizational
culture, manifested as a lengthy and complicated set of policies. In the following pages, we
briefly describe our repository project, talk about our original policies, look at the ways those
policies impeded our project, and discuss the disruption of those policies and the benefits in
user uptake that resulted.