Institutional repository management models that support faculty research dissemination

This article is © Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here (please insert the web address here). Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Introduction When promoting institutional repositories (IRs), there is often a disconnect between librarians and their faculty. Emphasizing escalating journal prices, open access mandates, and collection building, librarians tend to approach faculty scholarship as an organizational resource to be managed. In contrast, faculty are often focused on issues such as tenure, career development, and academic freedom. Their scholarship is a personal activity which represents their accomplishments and contributions. Unless librarians conscientiously work to bridge this values gap, institutional repositories can flounder, sitting empty and underutilized. One strategy librarians can use to connect with faculty is to focus on supporting them in the dissemination of their scholarship. Going beyond traditional research support, librarians have the opportunity to engage faculty throughout the scholarly communication life cycle. Using the services available through institutional repositories, librarians can consult on copyright and journal selection, offer alternative publishing mechanisms, assist in making published works openly accessible, create customized researcher pages, and provide publication and usage data. Creating and utilizing management models that ensure the delivery of these types of IR services can not only provide a needed infrastructure to assist in these efforts, they can also help showcase the value and impact of the university as a whole.