Abstract
The open access movement in scholarly communication has grown considerably over the last ten years and it has driven an increase in the number of institutional repositories (IRs). New professional roles and skills had to be developed to secure effective IR management. Collection developmente expertise and metadata curation are regarded as strategic roles for repositories and therefore it is only logical for the library and information community to take on the responsibility for managing these digital archives. However, it has become clear that traditional librarian skills do not suffice anymore to run successful repositories. A richer set of skills is needed, including management and communication skills, technical skills, and expertise with regard to access rights and preservation of digital content. Referring to the work carried out by the SHERPA Project in the UK with regard to the skills set for repository staff, the authors performed a survey among repository managers in Italy to assess the educational and professional background of the repository managers and the skills set required to implement successful institutional repositories. The survey findings show that the professional profile of the repository manager is a multiform and complex one. It requires cross-functional and highly specialised competencies. Italian repository managers are of the opinion that the skills required to promote the repository within the institution and those required to deal with copyright issues as the most essential skills repository managers should acquire and be trained for. Collection development and metadata expertise, familiarity with project management and expertise in repository workflow design are also highly rated. Technical skills are needed to deal with interoperability standards and protocols. In Italy academic curricula do not meet the repository managers’ educational needs. Academic programmes should be developed to include communication, project management and team work skills and pay more attention to copyright issues. Until that time repository managers will have to spend a considerable part of their working lives on professional training and self-directed learning.
Highlights
Since the launch of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, the Open Access (OA) movement, advocating free and immediate access to scholarly peer-reviewed literature, is gaining progressive acceptance among researchers’ communities.1 As is well known, the OA movement has defined two strategies to make scholarly outputs freely available on the Internet: the Gold Road, i.e., direct publication in Open Access journals; the Green Road, i.e., self-archiving or archiving of the scholarly publications in Open Access digital repositories, both subject-based and institutional repositories (IRs).Two Open Access advocates have been discussing whether or not these strategies are complementary: Stevan Harnad arguing that the Green Road is the main strategy to achieve the goals of the OA movement, and Jean-Claude Guédon claiming the two are complementary strategies
64% of the respondents (21 responses) to the survey identified themselves as repository managers and only 9% indicated they were repository administrators (3 responses). 27% (9 responses) were both repository manager and repository administrator
Another factor contributes to the lack of professional recognition for repository management in Italy: the great majority of Italian repository managers (94% of the respondents = 31 responses) works part-time, with an average of 8.3 hours per week spent on the repository
Summary
Since the launch of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, the Open Access (OA) movement, advocating free and immediate access to scholarly peer-reviewed literature, is gaining progressive acceptance among researchers’ communities. As is well known, the OA movement has defined two strategies to make scholarly outputs freely available on the Internet: the Gold Road, i.e., direct publication in Open Access journals; the Green Road, i.e., self-archiving or archiving of the scholarly publications in Open Access digital repositories, both subject-based and institutional repositories (IRs).Two Open Access advocates have been discussing whether or not these strategies are complementary: Stevan Harnad arguing that the Green Road is the main strategy to achieve the goals of the OA movement, and Jean-Claude Guédon claiming the two are complementary strategies. Since the launch of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, the Open Access (OA) movement, advocating free and immediate access to scholarly peer-reviewed literature, is gaining progressive acceptance among researchers’ communities.. The Gold Road, i.e., direct publication in Open Access journals; the Green Road, i.e., self-archiving or archiving of the scholarly publications in Open Access digital repositories, both subject-based and institutional repositories (IRs). Maria Cassella and Maddalena Morando tories and e-journals are beginning to blur and new journal models point in the direction of an overlap between the two strategies.. Changes in scholarly communication prompted by the OA movement led to important organizational changes in universities, research institutions and academic libraries. Academic libraries have supported OA principles and initiated OA projects from the beginning as it is their mission to give broad access to scholarly literature.
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