Separation of the terms "Open Access Archives" for OA research and
"Institutional Repositories", makes a great deal of sense to me.
One of the reasons for this is that "Open Access" clarifies the
expected access status.
The term "Institutional Repository" seems better suited to the
broader range of material produced by the institution, some of which
should not be openly accessible (such as personnel and student
records). Many organizations will probably end up with more than
one repository, for different kinds of materials, precisely because
of the necessary difference in access.
The Open Access Archive can be hosted on a server which needs little
security, for example; only enough to prevent hacking of the archive
itself, not authentication. Other types of materials that will end
up in different repositories need much more security. Mixing these
up complicates both set-up and running of the repositories /
archives; it is best to keep them separate.
It is appropriate, in my view, that the Open Access Archives be the
immediate priority for libraries, and this is indeed the case in
practice if not in name for the libraries I am familiar with. Small
p preservation (ensuring backups, etc.), should be fine for now; some
of the details of long-term Preservation still need to be worked out,
at any rate.
Heather Morrison
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
On 6-Mar-06, at 9:54 AM, EPT wrote:
> I agree with Richard Poynder's suggestion for a divorce between the
> *terms*
> used
> for the overarching institutional repository being considered by
> the library
> community and the simple OA archive for published research
> articles. If both
> activities have the same name there will be inevitable confusion.
> As others
> are rightly saying, IRs may take a while to establish, may rightly
> be the
> subject of intense discussion and will be costly, whereas the
> latter can be
> done very simply and is low cost.
>
> Richard proposes that the archives to hold the research
> publications of a
> research group/organisation be called 'Open Access Archives' and
> the term
> 'Institutional Repository' be reserved for the campus-wide
> activity. OA
> Archives is a term those of us working with developing countries have
> generally used. It sits comfortably with Open Access Publishing, so
> we have
> OAA (green, BOAI 1) and OAP (gold, BOAI 2).
>
> I don't know the rights of different claims to the first use of the
> term
> Institutional Repositories, but it would seem appropriate for the
> all-embracing 'digital collections capturing and preserving the
> intellectual
> output of a single or multi-university community' (Crow, 2002). I
> think to
> separate the terms would help remove confusions among those new to the
> topic.We are aware of the difficulties new-comers have in
> distinguishing
> between open access, open access archiving, open access publishing and
> institutional repositories (see the FAQ I worry about...) and an
> agreed
> separation of terms would certainly help.
>
> This is not to say that an IR cannot also embrace its OA Archive,
> as already
> happens for example at CERN, QUT, Minho University and other dynamic
> organisations ..... it is just to say that terms used to describe
> each could
> usefully be separated.
>
> Barbara
Received on Mon Mar 06 2006 - 22:10:01 GMT