We move then to articles describing research results from two important research projects on IRs: the Mellon funded “Identifying Factors of Success in CIC Institutional Repository Development” project led by Carole Palmer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the MIRACLE Project led by Soo Young Rieh at the University of Michigan.
In “Strategies for Institutional Repository Development: A Case Study of Three Evolving Initiatives,” Palmer, Teffeau, and Newton analyze the choices made during the development of three university IRs, with the aim of distinguishing the conditions that are driving IR development. They discuss three different approaches to IR development, and describe how decisions on IR implementation are based on “balancing content acquisition and service provision” within the complicated (and varied) landscape of library management and resource distribution, emergent roles for library liaisons, technical infrastructure, and intellectual property issues. Rieh, St. Jean, Yakel, Markey, and Kim describe the results of their telephone interviews with staff involved in IRs in “Perceptions and Experiences of Staff in the Planning and Implementation of Institutional Repositories.” Although staff remain enthusiastic about the development and implementation of IRs (and interestingly, in light of Salo’s essay, in their role in the open access movement), Rieh and her coauthors do find that IRs have yet to be implemented as part of a coherent set of services.