Library and Information Science Commons^™

Measuring The International Usage Of U.S. Institutional Repositories, Lauren Fralinger, Jonathan Bull

Jonathan Bull

Purpose – In an educational world with increasing internationalization, digitization, assessment and financial justification, US institutions, especially academic libraries, must justify each new project. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are no exception. The authors attempt to identify factors that might affect the international usage of US IRs as part of assessment efforts to determine an IR's return-on-investment. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was disseminated to IR administrators asking for demographic information, international usage counts for website hits and downloads, and any internationalization efforts connected to the IR in order to determine any influencing factors on an IR's international usage. Findings – While many …