̫ӳ Institutional Repository preserves, promotes work of university faculty and students
Contact: James Carskadon
STARKVILLE, Miss.—̫ӳ’s Institutional Repository helps broaden the accessibility and impact of scholarship produced by the ̫ӳ community.
Launched in 2016 and managed by ̫ӳ Libraries, the institutional repository showcases and preserves the work of ̫ӳ faculty, staff and students. ̫ӳ Libraries faculty and staff members provide guidance about sharing and preserving scholarly research, data and university archives through the repository.
“The purpose of the IR is to preserve and make accessible any scholarship that’s produced at the university by faculty, students and staff,” ̫ӳ Libraries Associate Professor Claudia C. Holland said. “It’s not limited to text-based content. We’re also interested in images, music, video and data sets. You name it, we’ll take it. We want to make our community’s scholarship and creative works discoverable and easily accessible.”
Julie D. Shedd, ̫ӳ Libraries coordinator of digital initiatives and web services, stated, “It’s a great way to have your work seen by not only the general public, but also your colleagues at ̫ӳ and elsewhere. The IR can open up new avenues for collaboration, and it’s a good entryway for undergraduate and graduate students to get their work out there.”
The Institutional Repository was recently enhanced to provide better platform stability and usability. Although there are submission guidelines, Shedd emphasized that if it is something “by, for or about ̫ӳ,” it probably has a place in the Institutional Repository.
As more researchers shift from subscription-based to open publishing models, ̫ӳ Libraries staff are available to help them navigate copyright and licensing issues. Submissions to the Institutional Repository use a licensing structure by which the creator allows others to freely download and share their copyrighted works. Licensing is the crux of success for any open repository, Holland said.
“Faculty are really busy, so the library is here to help in any way we can to encourage deposits, make the deposit happen and then promote the scholarship produced by our community in whatever way we can,” Holland said.
For more on the Institutional Repository, visit . For questions, contact Shedd at iradmin@msstate.edu or Holland at cholland@library.msstate.edu.
More information on ̫ӳ Libraries can be found at .
̫ӳ is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at .