Building the ‘Digital’ Library: Routes to Managing our Institutional Digital Learning, Teaching and Research Assets Together

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

General Track Papers and Panels

The session was recorded and is <a href="https://connectpro.helsinki.fi/p6y9838gcx3/">available for watching</a> (this presentation starts at 0:25:15)

As libraries are evolving they have to consider more and more how they adapt their services to meet the demands of managing digital resources, and gain the benefits from these. This adaptation is primarily focused on resources sourced from outside the library, as the shift to the network level gathers pace for many library services. Digital repositories have emerged as part of library operation over the past decade. In managing local resources within these systems, repositories have the potential to evolve into full digital equivalents of libraries. This presentation describes the case for such a role and, through work carried out by a Working Group of the Northern Collaboration in the UK, describes the investigations into how repositories need to evolve to take on this role. The case is made for collaboration as a route for sharing this work, and also enabling institutions to overcome institutional limits that can affect purely local development. A vision will be outlined for a future digital library and how repository development can underpin this.