*SUMMARY: **Please take the time to express your support for sustaining the
Depot <http://depot.edina.ac.uk/>, a far-seeing and timely
JISC<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/reppres/depot.aspx>
Project
that just happened to come slightly before its historical time! Please make
sure the Depot is kept alive so that it can now come into its own, to
perform the crucial role it was intended to perform, and set the example for
the rest of the world. The reason the Depot has lain fallow (with only 66
deposits<http://roar.eprints.org/index.php?action=search&query=depot%2C+the&submit=Search>)
to date is exactly the same reason virtually all of the world's Institutional
Repositories (IRs) <http://roar.eprints.org/> have been lying fallow: They
are waiting for the "slumbering
giant<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/522-guid.html>"
(the world's universities and research institutions) to wake up and mandate
deposit of their own research output. Meanwhile, funders have been
providentially mandating deposit of the research they fund, but needlessly
and counterproductively insisting upon institution-external, central deposit
-- instead of mandating institutional deposit and central export (via
SWORD<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/484-guid.html>)
-- simply because not every institution has its own IR yet! Yet that is
exactly the transitional role Depot was designed to fulfill: to provide an
interim repository for any UK institution that has no IR yet, so its
research output can be made OA until it sets up its own IR, to which its
deposits can then be automatically exported. Well the token is at last
beginning to drop for funders. So let's keep Depot alive to catch it, and
help propel the UK (and by its example, the rest of world) to universal OA
IR deposit mandates by funders and institutions alike.      -- S.H.*
------------------------------

*Consultation<http://edina.ac.uk/cgi-bin/news.cgi?filename=20090216depot.txt>
on
Role of the Depot <http://depot.edina.ac.uk/>*

16 February 2009

The role of the Depot must change before the end of 2009.

We have come to the view that we should not decide upon the future of the
Depot without first consulting wider among those who are working to promote
and enable sharing of research through Open Access (OA) self-archiving, both
in the UK and internationally. For the first part of that consultation
process we approached a small number of individuals and we are grateful for
their comments; those have helped frame the options we are considering. We
now seek your input in a short period of consultation over the next four
weeks.

The initial role of the Depot has been to provide the UK academic community
with an online deposit facility for eprints during the interim period while
Institutional Repositories (IRs) were being set up. Among other policy
issues this was to put in place material support for the prospect of
mandates for Open Access self-archiving. The initial purpose for the Depot
has been judged to have been completed, and the project funding from JISC
for the Depot as part of JISC RepositoryNet is coming to an end.

The Depot was never planned to be a central repository that would rival
institutional repositories; rather it has complemented them by assisting
both researchers-as-authors by providing two support functions. The first is
that of re-direction, linking the potential depositor of an eprint with the
appropriate UK institutional repository. This uses identity recognition and
the OpenDOAR registry of IRs. The second is that of ingest, enabling deposit
of that eprint, and thus exposure under terms of Open Access for those UK
academic authors not having an appropriate IR. Both functions are
computer-aided and without mediation by library or other support staff. We
have also carried out some project work (EM-Loader
project<http://edina.ac.uk/projects/EMLoader_summary.html>)
to investigate how extraction of metadata from extant sources could improve
the deposit process, both assisting the depositor but also helping to ensure
good quality metadata.

Within EDINA and SHERPA, which developed and supports the Depot, we have
been carrying out an appraisal of options for an exit strategy beyond its
project funding. Could the Depot add value by continuing as support activity
for the open access agenda, or else when and how to close the Depot? Please
give us your views.

Preliminary discussion with advocates of OA self-archiving have indicated
that there is value in continuing the Depot in order to assist OA sharing of
research output internationally, especially where IR capacity is not yet
comprehensive. There has also been discussion about how to develop the
re-direction capabilities more generally, including support of OA deposit
mandates by funding bodies - for example, by helping their funded
researchers locate the appropriate IR.

The existing Depot service will be fully supported until at least 30
September 2009. Next month (March) or shortly thereafter we will decide what
to do based upon feedback from yourselves, and any other developments, using
the following six months to enact an agreed plan. This might include
re-branding or change of mission and message, as well as arranging the
transfer of the limited content that we have in the Depot to some other
repository or even handing over the running of the Depot to another body.

Your comments are welcome, and should be sent to edina@ed.ac.uk, marked
'Role of the Depot'.