READIT - 2009 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
READIT - 2009 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
READIT - 2009 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
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Proceedings of <strong>READIT</strong>-<strong>2009</strong>, Kalpakkam - 603 102, 29-30 Dec <strong>2009</strong><br />
INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORIES – A CASE<br />
OPEN ACCESS ARCHIVES FOR KNOWLEDGE<br />
MANAGEMENT AND THE OPEN SOURCE ‘DSPACE’<br />
M.G. Sreekumar<br />
The primary goal of an academic or a research institution include, among<br />
others, creating, imparting (disseminating) and preserving knowledge <strong>for</strong> the<br />
domain/target audience <strong>for</strong> which it is established. During the process of the<br />
academic discourse and research activities, the faculty and researchers<br />
publish their findings through various vehicles of scholarly communication<br />
such as journals, conference/symposium proceedings, books, case materials,<br />
patents etc. Institutions also produce lots of knowledge in the <strong>for</strong>m of<br />
ephemeral and unpublished materials such as working papers, technical<br />
reports, courseware, classroom presentations (PPTs), lecture notes etc.<br />
Un<strong>for</strong>tunately, in India, the vast treasure of academic wealth created as well<br />
as possessed by many of the institutions are left unnoticed and untapped <strong>for</strong><br />
productive utility, as these lie disorganized, distributed and scattered. At the<br />
same time, <strong>for</strong>tunately, technology now provides a golden way <strong>for</strong>ward with its<br />
multitude of systems, services and capabilities. The advent of the Internet and<br />
its world wide social acceptance, the astounding achievements on the<br />
computing front, the emergence of an array of powerful open source<br />
softwares etc. have all opened up a plethora of opportunities <strong>for</strong> the<br />
library/in<strong>for</strong>mation fraternity in capturing, organizing, retrieving, disseminating<br />
and preserving the institutional intellectual output in a seamlessly accessible<br />
and outreaching manner. Further more, this aggregation and integration<br />
process of the institutional knowledge greatly supports and supplements the<br />
instructional/scientific process of the institute as a backup in<strong>for</strong>mation support.<br />
This indeed does a catalytic effect on the institutional knowledge creation<br />
cycle, and the active role of the in<strong>for</strong>mation professional in this activity is<br />
extremely crucial. An Open Access Archive (OAA), also more popular as<br />
Institutional Repository (IR) or ‘e-prints archive’, is a digital archive of the<br />
research output created by the faculty, researchers, and students of an<br />
institution and accessible over the Internet to end-users both within and<br />
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