Research online

Searching for published research by academic staff at Welsh Higher Education Institutions is set to become significantly easier following the launch of a new on-line service – the Welsh Repository Network.

Developed under the auspices of the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum (WHELF), the Welsh Repository Network is made up of 12 individual university research repositories that have been created to showcase cutting-edge, peer-reviewed research in the arts, humanities and sciences.

The network was formally launched during a one day conference held by the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum at the National Library of Wales on Thursday 19 February.

The 12 Higher Education Institutions involved are Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, Cardiff University, Glyndwr University, The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Swansea University, Swansea Metropolitan University, Trinity College Carmarthen, University of Glamorgan, University of Wales Lampeter, University of Wales Newport, and the University of Wales Institute Cardiff.

Speaking at the launch Mr Andrew Green, Librarian of the National Library of Wales, described the development as a “mini revolution”. Dr Andrew Prescott, Manager of Library Services at the University of Wales Lampeter, referred to the network as one of the most significant developments for universities since the introduction of University printing presses in the 16th century.

With the advent of the Welsh Repository Network, Wales becomes the first country in the UK where all Higher Education Institutions have established on-line repositories.

The development of the Network was led by Dr Michael Hopkins and Stuart Lewis at Aberystwyth University and funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).

Dr Michael Hopkins, Director of Information Services at Aberystwyth University said;
“The repositories allow universities to archive and protect the intellectual output of their institutions, but also make available cutting edge research to the world, enabling more open dissemination of the ground breaking and world leading research undertaken across Wales through the Open Access movement.”

Aberystwyth was one of two universities to pilot the development of online research repositories in Wales, the other being Cardiff University. In 2008 Aberystwyth launched Cadair http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/. The culmination of 2 years work, Cadair now features details of over 2000 published research papers in areas as diverse as Mathematics and Physics, Welsh, Sports and Exercise Science and Law.

Welsh Repository Network also represents a major step towards fulfilling one of the objectives of the Welsh Assembly Government's Reaching Higher agenda which calls for greater collaboration and the sharing of expertise and experience between Higher Education Institutions.

The full list of repositories is:
Aberystwyth University http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/
Bangor University http://dspace.bangor.ac.uk/dspace/
Cardiff University http://eprints.cf.ac.uk/
Glamorgan University http://dspace1.isd.glam.ac.uk/dspace/
University of Wales Lampeter http://eisteddfa.lamp.ac.uk/
University of Wales Newport http://repository.newport.ac.uk/
Glyndwr University http://epubs.glyndwr.ac.uk/
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama http://dspace2.isd.glam.ac.uk/dspace/
Swansea Metropolitan University http://dspace.smu.ac.uk/
Swansea University http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/
Trinity College Carmarthen http://dspace.trinity-cm.ac.uk/
University of Wales Institute Cardiff http://repository.uwic.ac.uk/  

Welsh Repository Network Funding
JISC provided £50,000 towards the cost of providing software and hardware for the development of the Welsh Repository Network.

The Welsh Repository Network also received funding from the £1.4M JISC funded Repositories Support Project http://www.rsp.ac.uk/project/about. The Repository Support Project is a 2.5 year project to co-ordinate and deliver good practice and practical advice to English and Welsh Higher Education Institutions to enable the implementation, management and development of digital institutional repositories. The project is being led by SHERPA, University of Nottingham, with core partners, Aberystwyth University, and UKOLN at the University of Bath. Other funded partners are the University of Southampton and the Digital Curation Centre. All partners represent key centres of expertise regarding repositories, and the project will build on their previous national and international activity across the repositories landscape.