Institutional Repositories: The Prospects and Challenges in Indian Digital Library Environment

Abstract

The information evolution leads to the flood of publication. User needs are also rapidly growing. They have to read more journals, require more information but the prices have increased faster than library budget. So to cope up the situation and meet the user requirement the institutional repositories has been emerged. In the age of ICT, the concept of institutional repository has arisen, which have become very essential mode of accessing and sharing the information. Information is always considered the root cause for the development of any society/community. Intuitional Repositories are digital collections of the outputs created within a university or research institution. This paper discussed about growth of IR in India and also global scenario of IRs. This paper is a consideration of some of the important aspects related with IRs. It also explores the trends at global and national level of IR. The present paper also discusses about some important software, which is being used by IR of various organizations world wide and described objective, definitions, content, use, features, design, advantages, key components, issues and challenges, etc. IR consists of formally organized and managed collections of digital content generated by the faculty, staff and students of an institution. IR enhance the visibility of the research outputs locally produced. The paper concludes with the remarks that the LIS professionals need to have more active and responsible for generation and maintenance of IR systems efficiently and effectively. Librarian is the focal point, the IR system as he plays a role of designer as well as service provider.