Introduction

An Institutional Repository (IR) is an online, digital archive, set up and hosted by an institution to house research publications and other materials written by its staff. IRs have increased in number extremely rapidly in the early years of the 21st century, and it is rare that a research institution does not have one in one form or another. The collections held in IRs tend to be a mix of open access versions of published work and simple catalogue records. These records are usually created using Dublin Core, a metadata schema originally developed to describe websites, for items which for a variety of reasons are not available. IRs are overwhelmingly based in libraries and are often managed by professional librarians. However, they need to liaise with the full spectrum of staff in a research institution, from academics and administrators to technical developers. Outside the institution they also need to liaise with a varied group of stakeholders, ranging from other members of the repository community to publishers. This variety of contact and roles makes managing a repository collection an extremely interesting and varied professional activity, while also offering value to the wider information profession:

One of the key factors to consider in developing a digital collection using an IR is that they are a relatively new and heterogeneous phenomenon and have, in a short space of time, achieved considerable diversity in aims, structures and implementation. They have evolved rapidly into an international community of practice, alongside the open access movement; but there is no single model, as yet, of best practice in handling many aspects of IR collections.