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Institutional Repositories · 23
Survey Questions and Responses
The SPEC survey on Institutional Repositories was designed by the following University of Houston staff
members: Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development Jill Emery,
Director, Electronic Resources Program Anne Mitchell, Metadata Coordinator Chris Morris, Web De-
veloper 2 Spencer Simons, Director of the O’Quinn Law Library and Robert Wright, Coordinator of the
Pharmacy Library. These results are based on data submitted by 87 of the 123 ARL member libraries (71%)
by the deadline of March 9, 2006. The survey’s introductory text and questions are reproduced below, fol-
lowed by the response data and selected comments from the respondents.
Since 2002, when DSpace and other institutional repository (IR) system software began to be available, an increasing number of
research libraries and their parent institutions have established institutional repositories to collect and provide access to diverse
locally produced digital materials. This emerging technology holds great promise to transform scholarly communication, but it is
still in its infancy.
For the purposes of this survey an IR is simply defined as a permanent, institution-wide repository of diverse locally produced
digital works (e.g., article preprints and postprints, data sets, electronic theses and dissertations, learning objects, technical
reports, etc.) that is available for public use and supports metadata harvesting. If an institution shares an IR with other
institutions, it is within the scope of this survey. Not included in this definition are scholars’ personal Web sites academic
department, school, or other unit digital archives that are primarily intended to store digital materials created by members of
that unit or disciplinary archives that include digital materials about one or multiple subjects that have been created by authors
from many different institutions (e.g., arXiv.org).
This survey is intended to collect baseline data about ARL member institutions’ IR activities. The survey authors recognize that
there are many possible service models for supporting an IR, ranging from a single, centralized support service provided by a
single entity (such as the library) to a much more diffuse support model involving multiple entities (library, campus information
technology unit, etc.) playing different cooperative roles. They also recognize that digital archives and repositories are not
neat and tidy entities, and they may defy easy categorization. They understand that some institutions have followed carefully
prepared IR project plans, some have taken an experimental approach that results in frequent adaptive changes of strategy,
and some have done a bit of both. Survey respondents are asked to use their best judgment and try to adhere to the general
definition above when responding to the survey. The authors also acknowledge that, in cases where IR responsibility is diffuse,
survey respondents may need to gather information from multiple parties. They and ARL thank you for making this extra effort.

Institutional Repositories · 21
institutional authority for review. Faculty members
were almost always authorized to directly deposit
digital objects in the IR, and professional staff
and students were typically able to do so as well.
These depositors almost always signed a deposit
agreement. Most institutions also authorized IR
staff to deposit objects on behalf of users. A deposit
review process was common, with documents most
frequently being reviewed by department or other
institutional officials. Authorized depositors were
almost always allowed to enter metadata IR staff
could typically do so as well, plus enhance existing
metadata. Most IRs accepted multiple versions of
the same document. Document withdrawal was
usually possible, but typically had to be done by IR
staff under specific circumstances. The vast majority
of institutions intended to preserve IR documents,
but most of those doing so limited the types of files
that would be preserved. Most institutions found
IR content recruitment to be somewhat or very
difficult and they usually engaged in a variety of
recruitment strategies to increase deposits.
The average IR start-up cost had been around
$182,500 and its average ongoing operation budget
was about $113,500. Reallocated funds from the
library’s budget were a key source of IR support,
as were new funds from grants and the parent
institution. Staff had been the largest single IR
budget item during start-up and it remained so in
ongoing budgets. Many IRs were funded without
dedicated budgets, using existing personnel and
technical resources.
The typical IR was supported by about 28
FTE from a variety of units within the library
and elsewhere, a digital library/initiatives unit
managed it, and that unit reported to a high-
level library administrator, such as an assistant or
associate dean/director. Most institutions modified
their IR software to some degree to enhance its
functionality.
As one would expect, the perceptions of
institutions still planning IRs did not always match
the experience of implementers as outlined above,
with differences most often occurring over resource
and time requirements as well as levels of difficulty.
Since these matters can be difficult to accurately
project and little data existed at the time the survey
was administered that offered guidance, this is not
surprising.
Although institutional repositories are at an
early stage of development, ARL libraries have
demonstrated a strong preliminary commitment to
them: 78% of the 87 survey respondents had either
implemented an IR or were planning to do so by
the end of 2007. Since IRs represent a significant
long-term organizational commitment, this is a
major expansion of ARL libraries’ service role and,
along with digital library functions, aptly illustrates
how these libraries are rapidly evolving into global
digital information providers.