"The digital repository is a fit with CSU’s strategic plan for research and discovery,” notes Camel Bush, Assistant Dean for Digital Services at CSU Libraries. "It provides services that give reliable access to CSU research through one searchable interface."

"The repository also fits with the Libraries’ strategic agenda to provide broad access to scholarly content and preserve that content for future generations of scholars," notes Dean Catherine Murray-Rust.

The Libraries hopes that the DR will revolutionize the storing and accessibility of CSU’s intellectual output. For faculty, the digital repository provides world-wide distribution of their works and enhances their visibility. “Because the DR is open-access, work will more broadly appear in Google and other Internet search engines,” notes Dawn Bastian, Coordinator of Digital Repositories at CSU.

The DR also offers a platform for housing an entire body of work in one central location. "The repository will preserve content from a variety of sources including peer-reviewed scholarly works that are commercially published but not archived," adds Bastian. This is an important part of making sure born-digital materials are preserved and accessible into the future.

Brian Ott, Associate Professor for Speech Communication at CSU, has already taken advantage of the Libraries' call for materials during this early implementation of the DR and has submitted several of his research materials for posting. "Dramatic changes in the production, format, and flow of information--fueled by the rapid development and proliferation of IT--suggest that ideas, insights, and scholarship will increasingly be stored, distributed, and circulated electronically in the global village of the 21st century," notes Ott. "I want my work to be easily available internationally. I believe the repository will help facilitate and sustain a new era of international collaboration and global academic networks."

For students the digital repository offers exposure for their work. It especially addresses the requests the Libraries has had to support electronic theses and dissertations. With a DR, students can share their work with prospective employers with one click of the mouse and the DR will provide a platform for accessing their research long after graduation.

For the CSU community, the digital repository showcases the works of the faculty, other researchers, and students in an open, global environment that makes it easy for researchers and other interested parties (such as organizations that fund research or have partnerships with CSU) to find CSU works. "As a vehicle that tangibly demonstrates the quality of CSU's work, the implications for raising support, both private and public, for CSU research may be profound," notes Murray-Rust.

The DR will be maintained by CSU Libraries and accessible via the World Wide Web. The Libraries will provide a full-range of self-archiving services for faculty and students interested in posting their materials so that they are not burdened with the process. Formats such as Word documents, PDF files, images, and PowerPoint will initially be accepted by the Libraries for posting; other formats will be accepted in the future, including audio, video, datasets, and others. Libraries staff are working to implement the DR and populate it for demonstration purposes by the end of the fall semester. The Libraries hopes to make the DR fully accessible and open for deposit during Spring 2008, at which time it plans to also launch a pilot electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) submission program. As file formats change, the Libraries will provide long-term storage and accessibility solutions. For all content deposited, the Libraries will maintain a persistent URL (one that will never disappear or become defunct) and the files and metadata associated with it, provide secure storage and backup of materials, and monitor format changes and migrate to succeeding format(s) when necessary and possible.