The purpose of this portal is to gather ideas and feedback from the UKHE repository community in advance of two JISC meetings to discuss the future of repositories. This page contains some background information on repository definitions.

Existing Definitions of Repository

Rachel Heery, 19-06-2008

The following definition was used in the Repositories Roadmap written by Heery and Powell in 2006. For the upcoming review of the Roadmap does the definition need replacing? Fine tuning? Changed emphasis?

"a university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution. ... An institutional repository is not simply a fixed set of software and hardware."

Clifford Lynch, ARL Bimonthly Report 226, Feb 2003, http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/br226ir.pdf

There follow some existing alternative definitions to prompt discussion.

"A container for storing digital content. Examples include a database, an iPod, PDA, directory, e-portfolio, etc."
University of Melbourne, Information Services Metadata Glossary, accessed 19-06-2008http://www.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/metadata/glossary.html

An open access repository is essentially an online storehouse."
Paul Ayris, Managing and Sharing Research Resources: How repositories can help, April 2008, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/researchrepositoriesbpv1.aspx

"Open access digital repositories are online web sites where authors or their designated intermediates deposit scholarly publications for anyone to read."
RSP website, accessed 19-06-2008, http://www.rsp.ac.uk/repos/definitions

"Institutional repositories provide a managed online system where the institution's resources can be both stored and accessed. They can give staff private or group areas where they can share material with their immediate colleagues. But material can, when appropriate, be re-used more widely, indeed openly, as staff and the institution see fit."
Andrew Rothery, Managing and Sharing e-Learning Resources: How repositories can help, April 2008 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/elearningrepositoriesbpv1.aspx

"A digital repository is a mechanism for managing and storing digital content. Repositories can be subject or institutional in their focus. Putting content into an institutional repository enables staff and institutions to manage and preserve it, and therefore derive maximum value from it. A repository can support research, learning, and administrative processes."
RSP website, accessed 19-June-2008, http://www.rsp.ac.uk/repos/definitions

"Repositories are "collections of digital objects" ...a digital repository is differentiated from other digital collections by the following characteristics:

• content is deposited in a repository, whether by the content creator, owner or third party
• the repository architecture manages content as well as metadata
• the repository offers a minimum set of basic services e.g. put, get, search, access control
• the repository must be sustainable and trusted, well-supported and well-managed."