Paul Royster

The institutional repository at the University of Nebraska‐Lincoln: Its first year of operations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a short history of the first year of operation of an institutional repository (IR) at a midwestern state university. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is anecdotal, reviewing aims, rationales, and strategies, and offering advice and some counter‐intuitive lessons.Findings – The paper finds that voluntary self‐archiving by faculty or campus publishers is exceptional or rare, but there are other ways of populating an IR with valuable content. IRs should seek original material, including new dissertations, as well as previously published articles. IRs should offer a variety of services to make faculty participation as effortless as possible. IRs can increase usage by efforts directed at publicizing their resources and offerings.Research limitations/implications – The paper concerns one institution, but the challenges faced are common to all new university institutional repositories.Originality/value – This paper is a useful source of information for ...

Library Publishing is Special: Selection and Eligibility in Library Publishing

Traditional publishing is based on ownership, commerce, paid exchanges, and scholarship as a commodity, while library activities are based on a service model of sharing resources and free exchange. I believe library publishing should be based on those values and should not duplicate or emulate traditional publishing. University presses have mixed views of library publishing, and libraries should not adopt those attitudes. Library publishers are not gatekeepers; their mission is dissemination. Libraries need to publish because traditional publishing suffers from high rejection rates, required surrender of intellectual property, long production schedules, high cost of products, and limited dissemination. Nebraska’s Zea Books is a response to these needs. Miscellaneous advice for library publishers is offered and selection and eligibility criteria are outlined. A suggestion is made for a cooperative ebook distribution network.

Foxes Propose New Guidelines for Henhouse Design: Comments on NISO’s Proposed Open Access Metadata Standards

This commentary is in response to: NISO RP-22-201x, Open Access Metadata and Indicators (draft for comment), which is available at: http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/document.php?document_id=12047

Report from the Participation in the Current System Workgroup

Do researchers and scientists participate in the current system of scholarly publishing because they like it, they need it, they don’t have a choice in the matter, or they don’t really care one way or another? What perceptions, considerations and incentives do academicians have for staying the course (like impact factors and tenure points), and what are their pressures and incentives for changing direction (like lowering publishing charges)?