Institutional repositories, self‐archiving and the role of the library

To raise some unresolved questions about the practical implementation and management of institutional repositories – in particular, the level of resource needed to support the process of self‐deposit into institutional repositories.

An opinion piece based on practitioner insights into their cataloguing practice and into digital preservation issues.

That metadata creation and the formulation of digital preservation policies for institutional repositories require significant resource, if they are to be carried out well. This level of resourcing may have been underestimated hitherto in the process of proselytising for institutional repositories.

This practice‐based supposition could be tested more rigorously by proper research investigation.

Suggests that libraries and librarians are well placed to give input to the metadata and digital preservation activities inherent in building institutional repositories. They should be resourced to give more attention to such tasks.

The paper tries to make a strong case for librarian‐mediated deposit rather than pure self‐archiving as the future of building institutional repositories.