The Daily O’Collegian

This fall, OSU faculty and staff will no longer be left out of the loop with the library’s Digital Repository.

The repository, or E-Archive, is a Web site created about a year ago that highlights professors’ research, grad students’ theses and dissertations, and any OSU department or research unit’s presentations and conference papers.

Bonnie Ann Cain, the OSU library coordinator of communications and publications, said the repository holds about 9,000 documents accessible to anyone across the world, although certain documents and formats are available to only OSU students and faculty.

“Regents professors are our guinea pigs right now and we are working with five professors on the site currently, so we’re still new,” Cain said.

Robin Leech, the OSU library digital initiatives director, said later on this spring, the library is adding Honors College students’ capstone projects and prestigious faculty research award recipients into the repository.

Leech said the library holds an award ceremony for faculty that have outstanding achievements in their research field.

“We offer the winners a chance to upload their research permanently on the Web site,” Leech said.

Leech said the ceremony takes place during OSU’s Research Week.

“During this week, research can be highlighted from all the different departments across campus to submit their proposals judged by library faculty,” Leech said.

Cain said the URL is the same for all the different pages available in the repository.

“This makes searching for specific items and accessing information easier for those not familiar with the Web site,” Cain said.

Cain said the idea for the repository came out of Strategic Planning committee meetings where the library sat down with OSU department heads and administrators to develop a strategic five-year plan for the library.

“Soon afterward, we spent time contracting with the vendor to get the site up and running and now we are in the process of actually putting the content in,” Cain said.

The site is run through a program called Digital Commons, Cain said.

“There is a listing in the ‘about’ section of the Web page that list other universities and institutions that have similar repositories with the Digital Commons company,” Cain said.

Leech said the professors’ research is kept up-to-date and the library allows them to submit their own pictures.

“The professors are excited because they can send their information and research worldwide,” Leech said.

Leech said there is also journal-publishing software included in the Digital Commons program.

“So far, we have only one participant that regularly submits journal articles,” Leech said.

Leech said the grad students’ theses and dissertations are copyrighted.

“There’s many on things published in the repository, so I spend a lot of time getting permission from copyrighters to scan and copy articles on the Web site,” Leech said.

Leech said the first 24 pages of the theses and dissertations are available for anyone to read, but OSU students can view the whole document.

“Anyone who participates in submitting to the repository receives a daily e-mail of how many people have been viewing their research information,” Leech said.

Bob Darcy, regents professor of political science and statistics, said he has submitted about 10-15 journal articles dealing with Oklahoma and Oklahoma politics to the repository.

“I am one of the original professors to submit articles, and I’ve been doing this for about a year,” Darcy said.

Darcy said he and the other regents professors get together often to talk about each other’s research.

“All of us publish in academic journals, to which the library has copies, and we also have our journals electronically submitted as well,” Darcy said.

Darcy said a lot of journals are more obscure than others.

“With the Digital Repository, all journals have a clear advantage at being fairly published in a straight-forward manner,” Darcy said.

Darcy said he got an e-mail from a Ph.D student in Canada, asking for his research, so he gave her the URL for the repository so she could access it.

“When I want my students to read articles written by me, I can just put in the URL on my personal Web site and my students can access it directly,” Darcy said.

Darcy said he plans to submit research over Stillwater municipal government elections this summer for the Web site.

“I think it’s very good that the library will allow these resources to be available to the rest of the faculty pretty soon,” Darcy said.

Cain said the repository is still in the infant stages and the library is still working on building it up.

“The Digital Repository is a great way for the library to build strategic colaborations with other departments on campus, making OSU research readily available to the whole world,” Cain said.

The Digital Repository is available at http://e-archive.library.okstate.edu.