Got to musing about this having read the report on the JISC funded White Rose project which had some interesting things to say about repository services.  Bit of a rushed post I’m afraid, but I thought it worth recording my notes

Clearly any services have to be derived from an understanding of the requirements of users. Why would they want to use a repository at all? How can the capture of research outputs contribute to a personal or institutional research profile?  How can it help grant holders fulfil grant related open access obligations. Of course the more services we can offer the more visible the repository becomes. 

Ideas included import of Refworks/Endnote databases or come to that bulk import of full text which would be useful because researchers are understandably reluctant to duplicate effort in creating metadata.  It would also be useful to share repository metadata with other internal and external systems. 

Some things we might want to consider that White Rose did – Researcher behaviour – investigate researcher awareness, motivation and workflow though a survey of  their existing archiving activity. 

Interoperability with other univ. systems (such as the library catalogue, Blackboard Content Store and so on) 

Advocacy at a departmental level, which might include production of regular statistical reports of downloads thus emphasising the benefits of using the repository. 

Offering a copyright checking service. (Well we do, sort of.) 

And to finish on a bigger question. Should the repository be a high profile service or should it be, in effect, invisible? I think the answer to that is that it starts high profile and then gets embedded. But how?