A Short History of the evolution of IRs
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Description
A unique perspective on IRs from celebrated IR leader and open access pioneer Paul Royster: In the roughly 25 years since institutional repositories (IRs) emerged on the scene, they have been promoted, vilified, celebrated, autopsied, chastised, called irrelevant, parasitic, and other things too numerous to mention. More significantly, they have flourished despite their critics and have become a cornerstone of open access scholarly communication. How did all this come about? Who and what were the precursors and progenitors? Who were the earliest adopters and their competitors, and what landmarks were observed along the way? Now, adopted and successful internationally, and poised to launch yet more widely still, IRs bring together scholars north and south, east and west, to share results and to satisfy the search for knowledge at all levels of the public and educational systems. IRs are essential infrastructure—but it didn’t just happen. Here is a brief recap of the phases and stages and twists and turns along the way, presented by a participant-observer from the earliest days.
Recommended Citation
Royster, Paul, "A Short History of the evolution of IRs" (2024). Digital Commons Conferences. 8.
https://dc.researchcommons.org/dcnoamconf/2024/oct7/8
A Short History of the evolution of IRs
A unique perspective on IRs from celebrated IR leader and open access pioneer Paul Royster: In the roughly 25 years since institutional repositories (IRs) emerged on the scene, they have been promoted, vilified, celebrated, autopsied, chastised, called irrelevant, parasitic, and other things too numerous to mention. More significantly, they have flourished despite their critics and have become a cornerstone of open access scholarly communication. How did all this come about? Who and what were the precursors and progenitors? Who were the earliest adopters and their competitors, and what landmarks were observed along the way? Now, adopted and successful internationally, and poised to launch yet more widely still, IRs bring together scholars north and south, east and west, to share results and to satisfy the search for knowledge at all levels of the public and educational systems. IRs are essential infrastructure—but it didn’t just happen. Here is a brief recap of the phases and stages and twists and turns along the way, presented by a participant-observer from the earliest days.
Speaker Details
Paul Royster is the recently retired manager of the UNL Digital Commons at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he had served since 2005 and built the 3rd largest and the most-visited IR in America—now approaching 100 million downloads. At Nebraska he also founded a library publishing imprint, Zea Books, with more than 160 original titles. Paul was one of the first generation of IR managers, and he helped define repository success and assisted bepress in the ongoing development of the Digital Commons infrastructure. Before his life in IRs, Paul earned a PhD from Columbia, and worked for 20 years in publishing for the Library of America, Barron’s Educational Series, Yale University Press, and the University of Nebraska Press. He continues to develop new digital publishing projects and consults on a range of scholarly communications issues.