Applications, Potential Problems and a Suggested Policy for Institutional E-Print Archives

Abstract

EPrints archives and similar archives promise many benefits for academics and their institutions, but there are complications in trying to solve too many problems at once. We describe the potential uses for an institutional archive running either the GNU EPrints software or software intended to provide similar functionality and how those applications may complement or interfere with each other. We then discusses policy decisions which should be made when implementing an archive and suggest a possible policy based on our own experience at Southampton University where the Electronics and Computer Science Department has been running an archive and database of our publications since 1998 and has provided software and assistance to many other institutions setting up a variety of electronic archives