Key Stakeholders, Scholarly Activities and Your Institutional Repository: Working Together to Promote an IR at Your Institution

Room B

The purpose of our presentation is to share our experiences in building support for the Institutional Repository at the Sprague Library of Montclair State University. We will discuss the issues related to consensus building, networking, and the forming of new partnerships. During this process we learned how to adapt to change and to find new ways to innovate, create and collaborate in order to demonstrate the value of the library, promote faculty research and all stakeholder scholarly activities, and to support the mission of the University. We will address the process of promoting the repository to the campus community at large, and everything in between from the planning stages to the hard launch of the repository, and beyond.

Outreach efforts and populating the repository have taken on a new importance in an effort to showcase the University’s scholarly activities. In parallel with institutional research activity, this increased visibility can translate into tangible benefits. These benefits encompass such aspects as enhancing the University’s competitiveness and ability to obtain research grants, improving its ability to recruit high-quality faculty and graduate students, and encouraging collaboration with partners who are considering engaging in research and development projects. As this evolving culture of research is embraced throughout the University, the need for a vibrant repository becomes more crucial to impacting the University’s strategic vision.

In our presentation we will discuss the challenges and successes of integrating our IR into a growing culture of research at Montclair State.

Topics include:

• Aligning the institutional repository with strategic goals to give the library a seat at the table
• Engaging internal and external stakeholders with the IR
• Outreach strategies to faculty on a changing campus
• Finding innovative ways to engage your faculty and key stakeholders
• Continuing to leverage the power of the repository over time to your super users