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8. Institutional Repositories of Geoscientific Research Institutions in India: An Analysis Renjith, V. R. Research Scholar, Dept. of Lib .& Info. Science,University of Kerala,Thiruvananthapuram. E-mail [email protected],

Abstract The purpose of this study is to identify and analyse the institutional repositories of geoscience research institutions in India. The repositories were identified through internet searching and browsing. Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (Open DOAR) were searched to trace out the institutional repositories in geosciences in India. There are various digital library softwares available for archiving institutional collections. The analysis shows that Dspace and Eprints are the most used digital library software by the geoscience institutions to build up their institutional repositories. Key words: Institutional Repositories, Institutional Archives, Geoscience Institutions, India Introduction Institutional Repositories are indispensable components in this world of rapidly changing technology, for information and knowledge sharing among the scholarly communication world. In this digital world, the institutional repositories make the library and information centres of parent institutions effective information service providers to their library patrons. Now the majority of the research institutional libraries make use of modern information and communication technologies for effective information management and dissemination. Thus the wide transmission and sharing of knowledge will lead to further expansion of the same discipline and related disciplines. The „institutional repository‟ otherwise called „digital library‟ is now a major platform for sharing of knowledge. The term „Institutional Repository‟ is used in different contexts and may mean different things such as digital repositories, digital archives, digital library, institutional archives etc. Clifford Lynch, the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information defines an Institutional Repository (IR) as “a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital material created by the institution and its community members Geoscience Research Institutions in India The research network for Geoscience Institutions in India is being run primarily by five agencies of Government of India. viz. Ministry of Earth Science, Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. In addition to these Ministries of Government of India, there are R&D Institutions in Geoscience under Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR), Department of Space (DoS), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). Thus there are a number of geoscience research institutions specialising in different geoscience subject fields functioning under various ministries of Government of India. Objectives The main objective of the study is to investigate the available institutional repositories in geosciences in India. The broad objectives are; 1. To investigate the existence of institutional repositories in geosciences in India; 2. To determine the type of documents available in these institutional repositories; 3. To identify the digital library software used by these institutional repositories. Methodology Extensive literature survey was conducted to find out the digital libraries and institutional repositories of geoscience institutions in India. The internet sources and open access registries were also searched for the same. The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) and Directory of Open Access Repositories were searched to trace out the geoscience institutional repositories in India. ROAR is a searchable international Registry of Open Access Repositories indexing the creation, location and growth of open access institutional repositories and their contents. ROAR was created by Eprints at University of Southampton, UK in 2003.

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(Wikipedia).The aim of ROAR is to promote the development of open access by providing timely information about the growth and status of repositories throughout the world (http://roar.eprints.org). Open DOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Open DOAR has also been identified as the leader in repository directories in a study by John Hopkins University (www.opendoar.org). The URLs identified from these registries were used to reach the home page of the concerned institutional repository and the details were collected from these institutional repositories. The websites of the various ministries of Government of India were searched to find out the institutions specialising in geoscientific research. Various geoscience institutional websites were also searched to determine the availability of open access institutional repositories in those institutions. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS Study covers only thedigitalrepositories of those institutions which are engaged in geoscience research activities only. The universities institutional repositories including geoscience subjects are not included in this study because there are no universities which are specialising in geoscience subjects other thanPanditDeendayal Petroleum University(PDPU) and the Indian School of Mines to some extent. 1.ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 1.1 Institutional Repositories of Geoscience Research Institutions in India Table 1 provides a detailed account of the institutional repositories in geosciences in India. These Geoscience research institutions use the digital library software Dspace and Eprints for building up their own institutional repositories. Majority of the repositories in most disciplines make use of the open source information repository software like Dspace, Greenstone Digital Library Software and GNU Eprints etc.These digital library software provide a web-based OAI compliant Institutional Repositories (IR) for free. There arecurrently just over 1400 repositories around the world (ROAR and Open DOAR). Repositories are also shown on a world map at the website Repository 66 (http://maps.repository66.org/)It shows that majority (more than 1225) of the open access repositories are created by using the digital library software Dspace. Secondly more than 468 digital libraries are created by using Eprints. As in the case of Indian geoscience institutional repositories, Dspace is the most preferred software as it supports large community, is freely available, is easy to customise, supports all types of institutions and archives any digital content. Another observed fact is that majority of the geoscientific research institutions are not using any digital library software instead they provide access to their publications and other documents through their respective websites. Table 1Institutional Repositories of Geoscience Research Institutions in India Sl. No

Name of the Repository

1

Dspace@NCAOR

2.

ePrints@MoES

3.

DRS@nio

4.

ePrints@ATREE

5.

IR@NEERI

6.

PalaeobotanicalRepository@ BSIP

7.

Dspace@IIG

8.

PDPU Digital Collections

Website Address http://14.139.119.23:8080/dspace/ind ex.jsp http://moeseprints.incois.gov.in http://drs.nio.org/ http://eprints.atree.org/

Parent Organisation

Digital Library Software Used

National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR)

Dspace

Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India

Eprints

National Institute of Oceanography (CSIR)

Dspace

Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment National Environmental Engineering Research Institute(CSIR)

http://eprints.neeri.res.in http://14.139.63.228:8080/pbrep/

BirbalSahni Institute of Paleobotany

http://14.139.123.141:8080/jspui/

Indian Institute of Geomagnetism

http://spmlib.pdpu.ac.in:8080/jspui/h andle/123456789/68

PanditDeendayal Petroleum University

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Eprints Eprints Dspace Dspace Dspace

1.2 Collections and Search Options of Geoscience Institutional Repositories in India Collections in institutional repositories maycomprise of textual, graphical, photographical, audio, video and multimedia documents. Indian institutional repositories subject collections include preprints, unpublished and peer reviewed articles, academic theses and dissertations, patents, seminar presentations, research reports etc. Institutional repositories now a day provide open access to the scientific research output of the concerned institution. Table 2 shows the subject areas, collections and search options available in the Indian geoscience institutional repositories. 2. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The following findings are arrived at; a. Though there are a number of geoscientific research institutions in India, only a few geoscientific research institutions have their own digital libraries or institutional repositories.It shows that the information professionals in these organisations should come forward to build their institutional repositories so as to disseminate newly emerging knowledge and expertise. There should be a national policy to avail the research publications and institutional publications to the scholarly community through the institutional repositories.In 2006, National Knowledge Commission (NKC) recommended the adoption of open access. The government of India, Ministry of Science and Technology and Department of Science and Technology (DST) (2014) approved an open access policy. This is considered as a remarkable initiative in the history ofopenaccessmovement in India. Majority of the research now going on in geoscientific research institutions are funded by the concerned ministries of Government of India, international scientific organisations etc.The funding agencies should have open access mandates. So it should become mandatory for the researchers and their institutions to publish the research publications and make it available in an open access repository which increases the impact on the investment made by the funding agencies of this research.This open access publication should be subject to Indian law and intellectual property policies of the respective funding agencies and institutions.Thesegeoscientific institutions should create their own institutional repositories and should be registered in ROARMAP to make visible and to excel other similar organisations in this field. Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) is a searchable international registry charting the growth of open access mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders that require or request their researchers to provide open access to their peer reviewed research article output by depositing it in an open access repository. (www.roarmap.eprints.org).Thus the peer reviewed research papers resulting from publicly funded research should be made available through open access channels, subject to copy right regulations. There are such recommendations from National Knowledge Commission Report in 2007. But many of the governmental institutions are yet to implement it. Two Indian geoscience institutional repositories are not registered in ROARMAP. They are PalaeobotanicalRepository@BSIPofBirbalSahni Institute of Paleobotany and Dspace@IIG of Indian Institute of Geomagnetism. b.National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) institutional repository DRS@nio has a world rank of 440 in the “Ranking Web of Repositories”. This is the only repository from the geosciences field included in this repository ranking site.The main aim of the Ranking Web of Repositories is not really to rank repositories, but to promote Open Access initiativesand global access to academic knowledge. Following that objective it promotes good practices, especially those intended to increase the visibility and usage of the OA contents(http://repositories.webometrics.info/about.html). c.The documents commonly available in these institutional repositories are scientific reports, journal articles, conference papers, institutional publications, project reports, annual reports and newsletters etc. Only one institutional repository contains academic theses. The geoscientific research institutions should recommend their research fellows to submit theses in electronic format also. By doing so, these institutions can include theses as part of their collection repositories and there by informing the scientific community about the

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research trends in the subject disciplines and to avoid duplication of research and to ensure the ethics in writing research reports (plagiarism). d.Dspace and Eprints are the major digital library software used by these institutions for building their IR. These are Open Source Software (OSS). The studies and surveys in this area show that Dspace being the most popular Open Source Digital Library Software followed by Eprints.In India, there are national level institutions, associations and societies like Developing Library Network (DELNET), Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) and National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) and National Informatics Centre (NIC) with expertise on Dspace, GSDL and Eprints. These centres are providing training facilities for library and information professionals for developing human resources in building digital repositories by using major digital library software like Dspace and Eprints. The technical expertise of these institutions should be available by the R&D institutions in building digital libraries. e.Two more Indian geoscience institutional repositories are listed in ROARand Open DOAR. But the site is not accessible. They are Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology and Indian Institute of Petroleum. In the website of Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology a link is given to institutional repository. But the site is inaccessible. It may be due to a dead link or the repository service has been discontinued. f.Major search options in these IR are issue date, authors, title, subjects etc. Apart from these search options, the digital repository of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) gives an additional search facility by institution. There are eight institution-wise search facilities in this repository including the collections of Ministry of Earth Sciences. There are ten geoscience institutions coming under this ministry. They are National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), India Meteorological Department (IMD), Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management Project Directorate (ICMAM), Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE), National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), National Centre for Seismology (NCS), and National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) etc. Out of these ten geoscience institutions, NCAOR has its own institutional repository. Even then NCAOR publications are included in MoES institutional repository. Three institutions like NCESS, ICMAM and NCS publications are not included in the Ministry‟s IR. g.There are a number of geosciences research and development institutions coming under various ministries of government of India. So the concerned ministries should take initiative to build specialised types of institutional repositories by including all the publications of R&D institutions coming under them like MoES Repository. There are a number of geoscientific research institutions coming under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST). They are National Environmental Engineering Research Institue(NEERI), National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR), Indian institute of Petroleum (IIP) and Institute of Mining and MineralsTechnology (IIMT).These geoscience research institutions are functioning under Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Out of these institutions, National Environmental Engineering Research institute (NEERI) and National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) have their own individual IR.Even though theCSIR has a good network of scientific research institutional network in various subject disciplinesthroughout India, it has not made any effort in building discipline or subject based institutional repositories of their institutions.CSIR has an institutional repository known as CSIO‟s institutional repository. This digital archive contains the research output of their scientists. In this digital library, browse by subject displays only 8 numbers of items in the subject field Geo-Seismic instrumentation. This is the only subject representation of geoscience in the CSIR digital repository. In February 2009 CSIR headquarters askedits 37 laboratories to set up open access repositories. CSIR research institutions dealing

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with specific subject disciplines should come forward to create and maintain a consortium of digital collections of such subject disciplinary institutions. h.There are no geoscientific institutional repositories coming under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWRRD&GR). The institutions coming under this ministry are Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and National Institute of Hydrology (NIH). There are also geosciences institutions under the Ministry of Mines (MoM). They are Geological Survey of India (GSI) and National Institute of Rock Mechanics (NIRM). These institutions also have no institutional repositories (though the portal of the GSI hosts all of its available reports at www.portal.gsi.gov.in). Conclusion The institutional repositories of these geoscience institutions promote knowledge generation and dissemination of scholarly output of these institutions. It also increases the institutions visibility and also the institution‟s scientific productivity across the national and international level. The institutional repositories of specific subject domains like geoscience subjects may be used by the other geoscience research institutions having collaborative research policy and thus it promotes inter disciplinary and multidisciplinary research in geoscience research. An effective knowledge management system can be achieved in those institutions having a full-fledged institutional repository. Considering the number of Research and Development institutions in geosciences, the number of institutional repositories and digital libraries are still fairly low. This situation needs to be rectified if India is to march forward in the world ranking of science and technology institutions.Based on the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), the prominentgeoscientific R&D institutions in India should come forward to set up their own digital or institutional repositories. REFERENCES 1. Lynch, Cifford A. 2003. Institutional Repositories: essential infrastructure for scholarship in digital age.ARL, Vol.226: 1-7. 2. Mittal, Rekha and Mahesh, G. 2008. Digital libraries and repositories in India: an evaluative study. Program: electronic library and information systems. Vol. 42,no.3: 286-302. 3. Royster, P. 2007. The institutional repository at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: its first year of operations. Available at:http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article¼1063&context¼libraryscience&referer ¼http%3A%2F%2Fworks.bepress.com%2Fir_research%2F19%2F

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