When asked about the biggest challenges for implementing the DR, Assistant Dean Bush notes, “There are technical challenges to overcome, but the experience of other universities shows that recruitment of content is a major challenge.” Most importantly, the Libraries wants the DR to be a tool that aligns organically with the research process. “We expect that implementation will help identify new digital and repository services to develop to better meet the needs of users,” adds Bush.

In addition to providing a digital storehouse for materials, the Libraries anticipates that it may eventually offer services through collaborative partnerships such as conference production processes, digital collections building, audio/video capture of lecture series speakers, symposia, and instructor lectures, technical support of virtual forums and communities, scanning and conversion of resources to digital form, and more.

“When we get diverse scholars exchanging ideas it enhances and enriches everyone’s work,” says Professor Ott. “The greatest barrier to effective collaboration right now is a lack of easy searchability and access. To be able to easily locate the corpus of a scholar’s work will greatly improve the academic conversation on issues of pressing social and political significance.”

CSU’s Digital Repository is offering one way of capturing scholarly materials that are increasingly ephemeral in a digital age, and providing such guaranteed access to a local, national, and global community of users.