Creation and Management of Institutional Repositories in Some Selected Universities in Ghana

Abstract

Much as a lot of intellectual activities go on in Africa, the limited avenues for espousing them, coupled with issues of copyright have led to little visibility of such intellectual output. Institutional repositories have thus been relied upon by many universities to preserve and share their digital resources. However, the few studies on the attrition of repositories often focused on cost and software engineering protocols, with little attention given to the needed collaborative efforts to bring about sustainability of repositories. This comparative case study, guided by the Diffusion of Innovations Theory, assessed how institutional repositories were created and sustainably managed for use by the academic communities of two private and two public universities in Ghana. It engaged 37 respondents whose activities concerned the operations of these repositories. The tools for data collection were semi-structured interview of respondents as well as observation of repository policy documents and the websites hosting the repositories. Thematic analysis of the rich qualitative data revealed that institutions see the worth of online digital institutional repositories in advancing scholarly communication and preserving intellectual, heritage and administrative materials, and have accordingly developed their repository with such collections. However, a lack of the needed involvement of key personalities on campus to create a wider acceptance of the repositories has led to low rate of material deposit, uncoordinated marketing and an equally low access rate. Continuous engagement of the various interest groups within academic institutions in the management of the repositories is suggested to bring about an appreciable level of buy-in. Bodies such as the Committee of University Librarians and their Deputies (CULD) and the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) have also been identified to consider the establishment of a national research repository to mutually harness the benefits