The Role the Consortium of Uganda University Libraries (CUUL) can play in the Implementation of Successful Institutional Repositories in its Member Institutions in the Central Region of Uganda

Abstract

The Consortium of Uganda University Libraries' (CUUL) primary objective is to provide a forum for addressing issues that face Ugandan university libraries. Other objectives are: to standardise operations and promote the adoption of new library-related developments. One of these developments is establishing institutional repositories (IRs). Institutions of higher learning worldwide embrace IRs as a way of disseminating institutional scholarly output at a globally. Ugandan institutions are not exceptional. However, despite the level of interest and the rate of adoption by university libraries in Uganda, only one institution and one research organisation in the Central Region of Uganda have managed to implement their IRs to meet Open Directory of Open Access Repositories' (OpenDOAR) standards. The aim of this study was to investigate the role that CUUL could play in helping member institutions establish successful IRs that meet OpenDOAR standards. The objectives of the study included finding out what defines a successful IR project internationally, the state of IR implementation in the Central Region of Uganda and what CUUL could do to implement successful repositories in the member institutions in the Central Region of Uganda. The study was qualitative, carried out in the central region of Uganda as a case study targeting CUUL member institutions. Respondents were purposively sampled, results were thematically analysed using spreadsheets and results presented in tables in chapter four. Conclusions and recommendations were made according to the findings. It was revealed that most of the CUUL member institutions had embarked on the process of IR implementation developing them in-house without the necessary skilled technical personnel. Consequently, they had many challenges both technical and operational. Conclusively, many institutions had not successfully implemented IRs. CUUL could assist in the implementation of successful IRs by either offering Software as a Service (SaaS) or by assessing individual institutions and help each at their point of need. For any approach chosen, members were willing to actively work with CUUL to have better and successful IR services.