UT Digital Repository: About Institutional Repositories

Institutional repositories attempt to capture any subject or content that is part of the intellectual output generated by the host university. They offer an opportunity for universities to disseminate work of their scholars and creative community on the Internet, and provide a means of publication in addition to traditional commercial venues.

New technologies are increasing the options for academic researchers, and creative campus associates, to communicate their work in ways that preserve quality assurance, while expanding distribution and search capabilities. Universities are now providing the technical infrastructure, personnel, and organization to support these evolving modes of communication.

A protocol developed by the Open Archives Initiative, OAI-PMH, enables global access to digital collections of scholarly, and university-related resources. Content management systems allow contributors to self-archive their work on the network. Once deposited, documents are presented, organized, preserved, and self-copyrighted. They then become part of an electronic archive that provides greater search capabilities than most web search engines.

---