Issues and challenges to development of institutional repositories in academic and research institutions in Nigeria

Open Access institutional repositories are electronic archives that may contain post-published articles, pre-published articles, thesis, manuals, teaching materials or other documents that the authors or their institutions wish to make publicly available without financial or other access barriers. Open Access institutional repositories provide an avenue for the promotion and dissemination of knowledge and institutional research outputs. It can also provide a better picture of the type of research being conducted at these institutions

Adoption of Digital Preservation Methods for Theses in Nigerian Academic Libraries: Applications and Implications

Graduating students of higher institutions in Nigeria usually write and submit theses, as a requirement for the award of diplomas, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. This paper examines the importance of students' theses to research, industrial and economic development of the nation and therefore advocates the need to preserve them. It discusses the intricate dimensions of the preservation of theses in academic libraries and notes the urgent need to address the worsening deteriorating state of students' theses in academic libraries in Nigeria. The paper also discusses the current traditional preservationmethods practicedamong academic libraries and observed that these methods are not adequate. It recommends that academic libraries in Nigeria should digitize theses and adopt the cloud computing preservation model through the operations of institutional repositories. The paper further identified digital divide and poor technological infrastructure, inadequate funding, data security breaches and issues revolving around copyright as challenges of digitization and cloud computing, and made recommendation

Issues and Challenges in the Development of Open Access Publishing and Scholarly Communications in Nigeria

The paper notes that advances in technology have resulted in the emergence of open access publishing and scholarly communication. Open access publishing typically provides an internet based digital platform for the publication of research output with unrestricted access to the public while scholarly publication networks encompass inter linked information access to database by educational institutions. The growth of open access publishing and scholarly communication has been very remarkable in many developed countries. However, academic and research institutions in many developing countries like Nigeria are still battling to overcome many challenges in an attempt to make their research outputs openly accessible. At the same time, cross access to digital libraries is in its embryonic stages amongst research institutions. This paper identifies the challenges and their effects

Institutional Digital Open Access Repositories in Nigerian Universities: Issues and Challenges

Universities as institutions of higher learning place emphasis on research as one of their core functions apart from teaching and community services. A key criterion that is used to measure the standard of a university is the quality and quantity of research output. A university that falters in the production of brilliant researches that can be applied in moving the society forward socio-economically and technologically, has lost its relevance. It is therefore essential that in expanding the frontiers of knowledge and imparting the society positively, adequate attention should be placed on the intellectual output emanating from the ivory towers. The situation where the totality of the research output emanating from a particular university cannot be ascertained will make it very difficult to evaluate the university output and could also impede the collation and onward transmission of the researches that can benefit different segments of the society to the parties concerned. This reveals the need for the establishment of institutional repositories (IRs) in Nigerian universities. Thus, Institutional Repository becomes imperative to maximize the visibility and global impact of the institution’s intellectual outputs, and also considering the weakness of the existing model of publishing which is rigorous, time consuming, expensive, and scarcely caters for the grey materials and other local scholarship. In the light of the innumerable benefits of institutional repository, university libraries all over the country, Nigeria should resort to institutional repository as a means of coping with preserving and disseminating (for full impact) their ever increasing scholarly out

Management of Local Contents in Institutional Repositories in Libraries in tertiary institutions in Nigeria: A survey.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the development and management of local contents in institutional repositories (IR) in tertiary institution libraries in Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research method. Online questionnaire and IR site investigation methods were used to collect data from 20 university libraries in Nigeria. The study revealed that no single College of Education, or Polytechnic library in Nigeria have embraced development of IR. Only 20 university libraries have successfully developed IRs to manage local contents emanating from the universities. The majority of the institutional repositories contain primarily theses and dissertations, journal articles and conference proceedings. DSpace was the most preferred software used in the various IRs to manage local contents, and lack of fund, inadequate facilities, absence of IR policies, and challenge of collecting contents from various contributors were the most mentioned challenges encountered in the development of IRs in Nigeria. The results from the study will provide important data and insight into the development of institutional repositories in tertiary institution libraries in Nigeria, and generate suggestions for librarians, and policy-makers for developing institutional repositories in developing countries. The project will enable university libraries in Nigeria provide world class services by making their local contents visible globally. This will make users access relevant documents in that particular tertiary institution libraries from anywhere in the world

Digital Preservation and Access of Natural Resources Documents

Digitization and preservation of natural resource documents were reviewed and the current status of digitization presented for a North American university. It is important to present the status of the digitation process for natural resources and to advocate for increased collections of digital material for ease of reference and exchange of information. Digital collections need to include both published documents and ancillary material for research projects and data for future use and interpretation. The methods in this paper can be applied to other natural resource collections increasing their use and distribution. The process of decision making for documents and their preservation and inclusion in ScholarWorks is presented as a part of the Forest Sciences Commons as a subset of the Life Sciences Commons of the Digital Commons Open Network launched and maintained by bepress. Digitization has increased the roles and skillsets needed for librarians and from libraries. This creates new challenges and opportunities for the library as publisher and as an advocate for open access. Digital curation melds together digitization and knowledge management and enhances community engagement. Digitization of collections are reviewed and natural resource documentation presented for faculty publications, Research Projects and Centers, eBooks, Journals, Galleries and electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). Recommendations are made to increase the digital curation of the collection by encouraging community participation and use. Digital archives are important to natural resource professionals as society-ready natural resource graduates need to deal effectively with complex ecological, economic and social issues of current natural resources management. Natural resource research for the future needs to ensure that professionals have a greater breath of knowledge as they interpret and apply new knowledge, understanding, and technology to complex, transdisciplinary social and biological issues and challenges

Institutional Repository as a Catalyst for Enhanced University Visibility: The case of Obafemi Awolowo University

Purpose: Nigeria has a great number of universities and research institutes who produces high volume of scholarly work which is mostly not visible to information users because of the absence, reluctance, and value placed on institutional repository. This paper seeks to bring to the forefront the benefits and opportunities IR offers scholars, researchers, institutions and the nation at large. The paper also examines in depth the purpose and importance of creating a university publication unit in the library, stating the different types of materials that can be acquired and organized in the section. Issues facing the digitization of publications and research outputs in Obafemi Awolowo University were addressed so that university libraries can learn and excel in establishing their own university publication unit and institutional repository. Recommendations for librarians, university community, management and the government were stated.Approach: The paper reviewed literature to examine the importance of having institutional repository and publication unit in the library. The paper also revealed extensively different information resources accessible for researchers and information users.Findings: The paper showed that research output from Institutional repository have a key role in information gatherings which is essential in decision making and policy making for national development.Originality/Value: The paper provided valuable insight into the benefits of awareness programs in achieving a successful and beneficial institutional repository

Institutional Repository as a Catalyst for Enhanced University Visibility: The case of Obafemi Awolowo University

Purpose: Nigeria has a great number of universities and research institutes who produces high volume of scholarly work which is mostly not visible to information users because of the absence, reluctance, and value placed on institutional repository. This paper seeks to bring to the forefront the benefits and opportunities IR offers scholars, researchers, institutions and the nation at large. The paper also examines in depth the purpose and importance of creating a university publication unit in the library, stating the different types of materials that can be acquired and organized in the section. Issues facing the digitization of publications and research outputs in Obafemi Awolowo University were addressed so that university libraries can learn and excel in establishing their own university publication unit and institutional repository. Recommendations for librarians, university community, management and the government were stated.Approach: The paper reviewed literature to examine the importance of having institutional repository and publication unit in the library. The paper also revealed extensively different information resources accessible for researchers and information users.Findings: The paper showed that research output from Institutional repository have a key role in information gatherings which is essential in decision making and policy making for national development.Originality/Value: The paper provided valuable insight into the benefits of awareness programs in achieving a successful and beneficial institutional repository

Challenges to Developing Institutional Repositories and Electronic Resource Sharing in Academic Libraries in Nigeria

The aim of conducting this study was to determine the challenges to the development of institutional repositories in academic libraries in universities in Nigeria. The researcher made use of descriptive survey research design. A total of 120 Systems Librarians from federal, state and private university libraries in Nigeria were sampled for the study with questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. The result of the study showed that at the moment, Nigerian universities are yet to take the issue of institutional repositories serious. The current level of institutional repository in Nigeria is very low. The result of this study also showed that the challenges to the development of institutional repositories include Low level of awareness on the part of management; lack of ICT personnel; inadequate ICT facilities; lack of ICT skills among workers; lack of fund as well as lack of interest on the part of librarians. Based on the result of the study, it is concluded that there is currently low level of use of institutional repositories in Nigeria. The researcher recommends, among others, that there is need to make adequate budgetary provision for the development of institutional repositories in Nigeria. Keywords: Academic Libraries, Challenges, Development, ICTs, Institutional Repositories, E-libraries, Resource Sharing

AN APPRAISAL OF OPEN ACCESS INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES USE BY ACADEMIC STAFF IN FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN NORTH CENTRAL STATES OF NIGERIA

This research was carried out to evaluate the Awareness and Use of Open Access Institutional Repositories by Academics in Federal Universities in North Central States of Nigeria. The research questions raised among others include: How often do academic staff use Open Access IR for dissemination of research outputs in Federal Universities in North Central States of Nigeria? What challenges are academic staff faced with in accessing Open Access IR in Federal Universities in North Central States of Nigeria? Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the research. The target population are 3,547 academics in the Federal Universities in the North Central States excluding University of Agriculture Makurdi, and University of Abuja. A sample of 355 respondents (Academics) was selected for the study. The figure represents approximately 10% of the target population of academics in the Federal Universities in North Central States of Nigeria. The instrument that was used to collect data for the study is questionnaire. The data collected was subjected to descriptive statistics. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the data. Some of the major findings revealed: that the Open Access Institutional Repositories were used by scholars on daily bases and at their will. That academics experience a kind of delay when looking for information from their Open Access Institutional Repositories during their academic activities which can lead to unproductive academic productivity. The study recommends that university management should provide necessary facilities and formulate policies that would encourage mandatory deposit and use of scholarly works in open access institutional repositories and other open access outlets to raise the level of usage among others