Lafayette College Library

An institutional repository (IR) is a digital archive of the output of an academic institution. IRs make content from academic institutions more readily available on the Web.

Lafayette Digital Repository

The Lafayette Digital Repository is a pilot institutional repository for Lafayette College, designed to make accessible materials from the College, including administrative publications and the scholarly work of Lafayette faculty.

Examples of other IRs

• Deep Blue: University of Michigan
• UR Research: University of Rochester
• USpace: University of Utah

For many, many more, see OpenDOAR, a directory of academic open access institutional repositories.

Institutional policies in support of open access and IRs

Harvard made headlines when the faculty of arts and sciences voted to adopt a policy by which all faculty articles are included in Harvard's institutional repository unless the author specifically requests otherwise. MIT adopted a similar policy, and faculty at other institutions are considering doing the same.

• At Harvard, a Proposal to Publish Free on the Web (The New York Times)
• MIT Faculty Adopt Open Access Policy for Scholarly Articles (Campus Technology)
• Open doors and open minds: What faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work through their institution (A SPARC/Science Commons white paper)