Resource-sharing through an inter-institutional repository: Motivations and resistance of library and information science scholars

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to be concerned with the motivations and resistance among an institutional repository (IR) stakeholder – the Library and Information Science (LIS) academicians – with respect to Green Road open access publishing in an inter-institutional repository.

Design/methodology/approach

The answers were identified from 47 LIS faculty from three library schools in Malaysia who reported awareness of what an IR is and having had experience in contributing resources to digital repositories. Data were collected using survey and interviews.

Findings

The results highlighted the LIS faculty on their motivation to share their intellectual profile, research and teaching resources in an inter-institutional repositories and why the reluctance in contributing. The study reveals that the major motivation to share resources for those practicing self-archiving is related to performance expectancy, social influence, visible and authoritative advantage, career benefit and quality work. The major resistance to share scholarly research output through self-archiving in institutional repositories for those practicing self-archiving is concern on plagiarism, time and effort, technical infrastructure, lack of self-efficacy and insularity.

Practical implications

Knowing what conditions predict motivation and resistance to contribute to IRs would allow IR administrators to ensure greater and more effective participation in resource-sharing among LIS academic community. If this resistance is addressed aptly, IRs can be of real benefit to their teaching, scholarship, collaborations, and publishing and to the community that they serve.

Originality/value

The first study that has explored the ways LIS academics respond to a situation where knowledge sharing in academe has now been made mandatory through an IR and what makes them resist to do so.

Citation

Abrizah, A., Hilmi, M. and Kassim, N.A. (2015), "Resource-sharing through an inter-institutional repository: Motivations and resistance of library and information science scholars", The Electronic Library, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 730-748. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-02-2014-0040