Relationships between Metadata application and downloads in an institutional repository of an American Law School

Abstract

© 2019, The authors. Background. The Duke Law Scholarship Repository is a successful digital repository of an American law school, with over 1 million downloads per year. A series of studies were conducted to understand the relationship between metadata work and downloads. Objective. The paper reports an analysis of the relationships between certain metadata elements and repository downloads. Methods. Quantitative statistical methods, specifically correlation, t-test and multiple regression analysis, were used. Results. Statistically significant relationships were found between download frequency and factors relating to abstract, co-authors, page count and discipline. Negative statistically significant relationships were found between download frequency and free text keywords, as well as controlled vocabulary subject terms. Contributions. This study is an example of how in-use repository system administrators can demonstrate the impact of metadata work for institutional scholarly outreach. Also, this study adds another dimension to the keyword and searching/download literature that has been building since the 1970s