Using DSpace as a Repository

Middlebury uses the DSpace Institutional Repository (IR), an online system available for the retention of digital materials, to store materials unique to Middlebury College. It comes to us via NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education) DSpace Pilot Service. Documents and files currently in DSpace from a number of the NITLE colleges can be browsed or searched at the NITLE DSpace site ( http://dspace.nitle.org/ ).

Middlebury undertook an initial test load comprising Geology Department theses solicited in 2006. In spring 2007, Middlebury senior theses were solicited by a number of faculty at the request of LIS liaisons for inclusion in DSpace. Participation was scattered across the academic departments. Most participating departments allowed students to decide whether to submit a thesis, while some departments contemplated inviting only honors thesis work. Documents (in Word) were converted to read-only PDF format before they were posted to DSpace (although the repository can accept files in a variety of formats). Google and other search engines index DSpace metadata as well as the content of documents that are set for open access.

What's planned for the future?

• a variety of materials that document the intellectual, scholarly and artistic vitality of the College
• new senior theses from 2008
• additional student research (such as posters and papers presented at the Research Symposium)
• key documents related to College affairs (reports, handbooks, etc.)
• pre-prints, post-prints, or other publications by faculty, staff and students

Our hope for the immediate future is that the IR will help us preserve and support student research on campus, for example, a senior thesis or a presentation from a research symposium. For many years we have kept senior honors theses in Special Collections in order to document and preserve student achievement for future researchers. In that sense, the IR is just an extension of an existing mission.

Our long-term interests put us in line with efforts at other schools and institutions to improve scholarly communication and open access to scholarly research and works. As our IR grows, it should allow us to provide authors (students, faculty, staff) an opportunity to publish their copyrighted work electronically. We want to support authors who wish to take advantage of such opportunities – not only for the benefit of authors making their works available, but also in light of continuing budgetary pressures. As journal subscription prices perpetually rise, impeding access to published research, many hope that creating alternatives to traditional publishing structures will benefit current and future access to scholarly works.

NITLE's DSpace service allows storage space to be shared among participating colleges, and provides for searching across the collections. Most NITLE institutions initially are depending on library and information services staff to upload and describe documents using a simple 'metadata' scheme. Long-time university and research communities that utilize other instances of DSpace often enable end-user communities to post directly their research, scholarly writing, and other content.

Background information about the history of the project may be found on NITLE's Web site in the section on Managed Technology Services - The DSpace Pilot Service .

NITLE institutions have the option to enroll in the project at a 10% discount during the "pilot" stage, until June 30, 2008. NITLE contracts with Longsight LLC, a firm committed to maintaining the IR content, even if the service should migrate to other platforms in the future.