The Evolving Institutional Repository Landscape: Sustaining the Repository

In this final episode of our four-part series on the evolution of institutional repositories, our guests talk about how they not only sustain engagement with their IRs, but grow it as well. A key driver of success is relationships. Partnerships with faculty and students are, of course, crucial, but Illinois Wesleyan’s Stephanie Davis-Kahl and Utah State University’s Dylan Burns both describe how they target entities such as admissions and university communications to help expand the circle of repository influencers. They also put the time in for personal connections with individuals, which is also important to expanding the repository’s promotional network. Stephanie and Dylan also talk about how they’ve kept the IR mission purposefully broad in scope to accommodate a range of content types and the communities it serves.