The Complete Guide to Institutional Repositories. Edited by Stephen Craig Finlay. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2021. 197 p. $74.99 softcover (ISBN: 978-0-838948101).

This edited volume by Stephen Craig Finlay on institutional repositories (IRs) involves mostly-United States-based academic library author contributors. These contributions share different project perspectives from scholarly communication and institutional repository librarians, but also share project perspectives from library personnel in the areas of reference, assessment, and special collections. The book is divided into many chapters on planning and implementation of an IR, followed by several case studies and experiences from various libraries and institutions. Most chapters are followed with an extensive list of references and notes for further reading.

The book starts out with a bang with a powerful chapter on “Starting an Institutional Repository” by Leo Stezano. Stezano’s chapter is a narrative companion to go with his 2016 workflow document “A Librarian’s Process for Building an Institutional Repository”.1 Both are excellent explanations of how to get started with an IR at an institution, including what to do to initiate the project, defining what content will be in the IR, the IR’s relationship to other digital collections in an institution, determining what feature sets to use, creating a metadata schema, defining access protocols, a plan for sustainability, choosing an appropriate system for the IR, and general communication about the IR internally and externally. Stezano warns us early in the chapter that “it would be tempting to shortcut some of the activities listed [in this chapter], but that will only create bigger problems down the road” (3). This particular chapter should be shared with library or university administrators or libraries in general starting an IR and all the things that need to be done and considered ahead of time. Even if the reader has already started an IR or had one in place for a while, it is a good chapter to read to be reminded of successes (or failures) in the project, and tasks that need to be completed for a proper IR.

The rest of the planning and implementation chapters cover some basic things to consider when planning an IR. As noted in chapter 2 by author Harrison Inefuku, “much of the literature on [repositories] remains devoted to discussing faculty members’ self-archiving activity” (19), and the rest of this book is a good update to the library literature to cover other aspects of running an IR: communication and marketing, policies for the IR, authority control and metadata planning, copyright concerns, and what and whose work should be in an IR. The book assumes that the reader might be new to librarianship as well and has some basic chapters on name authority and copyright, if not familiar with those concepts from other library projects. Topics that run throughout the planning and implementation chapters include the impact on IR policies and materials accepted due to funder and/or institution mandates for faculty authors to deposit their works in an open access (OA) IR, the importance of creating clear policies for what to include and from whom, and what situations may cause the removal of an item from an IR.

The five case study chapters to close the book include a detailed analysis of IR policies from many institutions by an institution with a long-standing IR (in order to update their own), a review of OA policies with a European perspective, a look at open-source IR software, planning a community outreach event for an IR, and faculty outreach ideas. One strength of the book and the case studies is that the authors share that not everything went well. Examples include a well-planned community event that had very few attendees, an IR that was managed well by particular people but then they left the institution, and faculty outreach asking for curriculum vitaes that had lower participation than expected. Thanks to these reports, all readers can learn from these ideas that did not live up to expectations and save time and planning for institutional projects.

In any volume about library technology like an IR, there is concern about the work going out of date soon after purchase. However, this volume was written to not include technology that would quickly go out of date (besides the current options for open-source IR software, which still will be current for a few more years), making this volume useful for years to come. Even if the reader is not planning an IR soon but is planning other large library technical projects (such as a new integrated library system), this book provides some good ideas on project management and marketing. For a librarian new to IR work and/or project planning, or with any institution starting a new IR, this work is essential.—Christina L. Hennessey (christina.hennessey@csun.edu), California State University, Northridge

Reference

1. Leo Stezano, “A Librarian’s Process for Building an Institutional Repository,” 2016, https://newinformationservices.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/els-lc_ir_process.pdf.