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What You’re Up Against Dorothea Salo Digital Repository Librarian University of Wisconsin 3 December 2007

What You're Up Against

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Given for the PALINET workshop on institutional repositories, 3 December 2007.

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Page 1: What You're Up Against

What You’re Up AgainstDorothea Salo

Digital Repository LibrarianUniversity of Wisconsin

3 December 2007

Page 2: What You're Up Against

Let’s start a repository!

The metadata’s easy, just Dublin Core!

The software is free!

Faculty have all their work just lying around...

they’ll love having a place to store it!

We’re fixing

scholarly

communication!All we have to do is set it up!

Maybe a little marketing...

Faculty will do the rest!

It’s essential infrastructure!

All we need is a mandate!

Page 3: What You're Up Against

Nobody needs these things.

Reality checkIf it’s important, it’s been published. If it’s not, they

don’t know where it is, and don’t care.

The software is useless.

The word “metadata” scares faculty.

Faculty won’t hear about it,

won’t understand it,

and won’t do anything with it.

Publishers have

us outgunned with

our own faculty.

We can’t tell faculty what to do.

Page 4: What You're Up Against

Fundamental ideology

Page 5: What You're Up Against

Fundamental ideology

IF YOU BUILD IT...

... they will c

ome!

Page 6: What You're Up Against

Well, we built it.

They aren’t coming.

Page 7: What You're Up Against

Faculty: the few

•Peter Suber

•Stevan Harnad

•Physics and computer science

•“Open Access Anthropology”

•Editorial revolts

•Faculty-senate initiatives

Page 8: What You're Up Against

Faculty: the many

•Worried about their reputations

•Worried about their societies

•Don’t care about our problems

•Unaware how much they’re giving up

•Unwilling or unable to change their workflows (and we’re not helping much)

Page 9: What You're Up Against

Keystrokes?!(you expect them to type actual keystrokes?)

• Faculty have never preserved their work before. Why should they have to do it now?

• Do they know where their work is?

• Do they own rights to it? Do they care?

• Our interfaces are horrible. All of them.

• Do they trust us to do this? Do they know we do it?

• What’s in it for them?

Page 10: What You're Up Against

The basic problem is...

We don’t have

anything faculty want...

... and what faculty want,

we don’t have.

THE IDEOLOGY HAS FAILED.

Page 11: What You're Up Against

“We did all the planning. So everything will be just fine.”

Pernicious effects“Resources?

Staff? But faculty are doing all the work,

right?”

“Training? Encouragement?

Mediated deposit? Bah, a deposit only takes ten

minutes!”

Page 12: What You're Up Against

“We did all the planning. So everything will be just fine.”

Pernicious effects“Resources?

Staff? But faculty are doing all the work,

right?”

“Training? Encouragement?

Mediated deposit? Bah, a deposit only takes ten

minutes!”

“My publisher will hate me and I’ll never get tenure and no one will respect me again and I’ll throw

myself off a bridge...” “Of course I own the rights! I wrote it, didn’t

I?”

Page 13: What You're Up Against

“We did all the planning. So everything will be just fine.”

Pernicious effects“Resources?

Staff? But faculty are doing all the work,

right?”

“Training? Encouragement?

Mediated deposit? Bah, a deposit only takes ten

minutes!”

“My publisher will hate me and I’ll never get tenure and no one will respect me again and I’ll throw

myself off a bridge...”

“Customization? It works out of the

box!”

“Versioning in the software? All we want is the final

product!”

“Of course I own the rights! I wrote it, didn’t

I?”

Page 14: What You're Up Against

“We did all the planning. So everything will be just fine.”

Pernicious effects“Resources?

Staff? But faculty are doing all the work,

right?”

... *poke* *poke*...

“Training? Encouragement?

Mediated deposit? Bah, a deposit only takes ten

minutes!”

“My publisher will hate me and I’ll never get tenure and no one will respect me again and I’ll throw

myself off a bridge...”

“Customization? It works out of the

box!”

“Versioning in the software? All we want is the final

product!”

“Of course I own the rights! I wrote it, didn’t

I?”

“What’s that thing got to do with me?”

Page 15: What You're Up Against

“We did all the planning. So everything will be just fine.”

Pernicious effects“Resources?

Staff? But faculty are doing all the work,

right?”

... *poke* *poke*...

“Training? Encouragement?

Mediated deposit? Bah, a deposit only takes ten

minutes!”

“My publisher will hate me and I’ll never get tenure and no one will respect me again and I’ll throw

myself off a bridge...”

“Customization? It works out of the

box!”

“Versioning in the software? All we want is the final

product!”

“Of course I own the rights! I wrote it, didn’t

I?”

“What’s that thing got to do with me?”

“How dare you take in student projects

(learning objects, images, digitized special collections, etc.)? Repositories are about the

PEER-REVIEWED LITERATURE!”

Page 16: What You're Up Against

“We did all the planning. So everything will be just fine.”

Pernicious effects“Resources?

Staff? But faculty are doing all the work,

right?”

Why is it so empty? Where did we go wrong? Where did I go wrong?

... *poke* *poke*...

“Training? Encouragement?

Mediated deposit? Bah, a deposit only takes ten

minutes!”

“My publisher will hate me and I’ll never get tenure and no one will respect me again and I’ll throw

myself off a bridge...”

“Customization? It works out of the

box!”

“Versioning in the software? All we want is the final

product!”

“Of course I own the rights! I wrote it, didn’t

I?”

“What’s that thing got to do with me?”

“How dare you take in student projects

(learning objects, images, digitized special collections, etc.)? Repositories are about the

PEER-REVIEWED LITERATURE!”

Page 17: What You're Up Against

The simple fact is...

... nobody’s coping well with the ideology failure.

Not in the United States, anyway.

Page 18: What You're Up Against

Two choices

• You can make your service valuable to faculty on FACULTY TERMS...

• ... which means a lot of design and development work, because repository software is so hopelessly bad...

• ... or hooking the repository to a sturdier bandwagon...

• Or you can do the deposit work on their behalf...

• ... which means a lot of software and workflow development, as well as ongoing costs.

Page 19: What You're Up Against

Two choices

• You can make your service valuable to faculty on FACULTY TERMS...

• ... which means a lot of design and development work, because repository software is so hopelessly bad...

• ... or hooking the repository to a sturdier bandwagon...

• Or you can do the deposit work on their behalf...

• ... which means a lot of software and workflow development, as well as ongoing costs.

• NOTHING ELSE WORKS.

• If you can’t commit to one or the other, get out of this business (or don’t get into it in the first place).

Page 20: What You're Up Against

The software

• If you have the choice, go for EPrints.

• Arrange a customization workflow with IT up-front.

• You will have to customize it. Repeatedly.

• If IT won’t let you or help you, forget it.

• Think now about how to integrate with other campus content-creation services.

• Pay attention to SWORD. Close attention.

• Got webspace? Build in an “Archive It!” button.

Page 21: What You're Up Against

The service model• The repository by itself is useless.

• But it can form part of useful services:

• Research assessment and faculty bibliographies.

• Retirement archiving.

• Publishing and copyright consulting or assistance.

• Collaboration and other cyberinfrastructure spaces.

• Conference capture and archival. Small-journal archival.

• ETDs.

• Figure out the services you can offer that fit your faculty’s needs and your goals.

Page 22: What You're Up Against

You and your colleagues

• You need to win Most Collegial awards.

• Your colleagues won’t help the IR, but they might help you.

• You need your library administrators’ ear. And their help.

• You can’t get a mandate.

• You can’t require ETDs.

• You can’t allocate library staff time or funding.

• You can’t even talk to provosts and deans and IT brass.

• Start beating the drum now, and don’t stop.

Page 23: What You're Up Against

You and me• We do not have a community of practice.

• No journals, just “special issues.”

• No regular conferences (in the US), just random workshops.

• No professional associations, or even SIGs.

• Not even a lousy mailing list!

• We are not sharing...

• ... policies.

• ... code.

• ... ideas.

• ... the burden.

• I can’t fix this one alone. I’ve tried.

If anyth

ing, we’re being ta

lked at.

Not talked to, an

d certainly n

ot

listened to.

Page 24: What You're Up Against

Credits

• http://flickr.com/photos/jacobrask (Cover)

• http://flickr.com/photos/purpleslog (Let’s start)

• http://flickr.com/photos/bossco (Reality check)

• http://flickr.com/photos/laffy4k (Fundamental ideology)

• http://flickr.com/photos/oneservant2go (We built it, The basic problem, The simple fact)

• http://flickr.com/photos/rickabbott/ (Faculty: the many)

• http://flickr.com/photos/DeclanTM (Keystrokes)

• http://flickr.com/photos/anonfx (Two choices)

• http://flickr.com/photos/alex-photos (The software)

• http://flickr.com/photos/myklroventine (Service models)

• http://flickr.com/photos/richardsummers (You and your colleagues)

• http://flickr.com/photos/kazk (You and me)

Page 25: What You're Up Against

Thank you!... and good luck!

[email protected]: mindsatuw

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.