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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the level of awareness and usage of open source digital repository software (DRS). The paper also studies the factors, which influence the level of awareness and usage of different open source DRS by academic librarians in India. Design/methodology/approach: The study administered an online questionnaire to academic librarians in India to know their level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. The questionnaire aimed to gather the awareness and usage of open source DSR. In total, 374 complete responses were collected from academic librarians in India and the collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Moreover, Fishers' exact test was used to identify whether factors i.e. qualification and participation in workshop/seminar influence the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. Findings: The results of the study reveal that the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS, namely, DSpace (Mean = 2.92, SD = 0.906) and Greenstone digital library software (GSDL) (Mean = 2.18, SD = 0.699) are high amongst the academic librarians in India. In total, 33.4%, 11.5% of the participants are using DSpace and GSDL, respectively, on regular basis. Fishers' exact test shows that factor(s) i.e. qualifications and participation in workshop/seminar affect the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. The results show that there exits strong relation between participation in workshop/seminar and awareness and usage of DSpace (Fishers' exact test = 13.473, p < 0.05). Originality/value: This paper is the new type of study exploring level of awareness and usage of open source DRS by academic librarians in India. It identifies the factors that affect the awareness and usage of open source DRS. It is the first study to analyze the statistical significance between Indian librarians' participation in workshop/seminar and their level of awareness and usage of different open source DRS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the University of South Carolina's Digital Activities Department's history and development. Design/methodology/approach – This article recounts the development of the Digital Activities Department and examines local policies and procedures. In addition, the article discusses the fundamental issues of choosing a digital repository, creating metadata, and scanning images. The authors take a practical, in-depth approach in discussing their experiences. Findings – After just a few years, the Library has launched the department and successfully provided online access to a growing number of digital collections. Collaboration has been the key element in the department's success. Originality/value – The lessons learned will help other institutions develop digital activities departments and provide online access to digital archives and collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary reason for establishing an institutional repository is to increase the visibility of the institution's research output by making it Open Access. Academic libraries are becoming very involved in managing electronic scholarly products and participating in the evolving scholarly communication process through institutional repositories. Although institutional repositories can make room for easier access to universities' research output, unfortunately it is not fully developed in some academic institutions. The origin of this problem is that there are known instances where librarians in-charge of institutional repository are unaware of their roles, and are unskilled in implementing the institutional repository. This paper describes a study conducted on the roles of librarians in the deployment and content recruitment of institutional repositories in eight (8) universities in Malaysia. Sample for this study are librarians who are involved with the development and implementation of institutional repository in their respective universities. The study reveals that the act of collecting materials for depositing is mainly done by librarians rather than the authors and researchers. Providing training sessions, holding meetings in departments and faculties, and also linking of the institutional repository website from the university and faculties' website have the highest rank in librarians' approach to promote the institutional repository. The paper also discusses the process of depositing, motivation factors, roles, marketing and benefits of institutional repository that will have reference value for the librarians who desire to embark on an institutional repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key attribute to the academic environment is the value given to research due to its enormous benefits to both the researcher and the institution's knowledge creation. As research output increases in volume, libraries are required to have substantial support systems to manage and make access to these collections available to its users. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are library initiatives that aim at providing a digital embodiment for the management, preservation and dissemination of the intellectual work of the institution. Promoting these intellectual outputs on library's IRs has been found to be very important in providing sustainable and proactive library services. The purpose of this study was to find out how Sam Jonah Library is promoting its institutional repository in order to increase the institution's visibility worldwide. Questionnaires were the main data collection instrument used for the study. The findings revealed that the study participants were fully aware of the benefits of IRs in promoting institutional intellectual output. Some of the challenges that hindered the success of promoting IRs were the lack of a policy to help in its operation, lack of funds, lack of technical staff, apathy from staff, lack of training and lack of knowledge on the tools and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]