DSpace Home > DSpace > Introducing DSpace > Institutional Repositories

Using DSpace to Build an Institutional Repository

DSpace is a groundbreaking digital library system to capture, store, index, preserve, and redistribute all your scholarly research material in digital formats.

One of the leading uses for DSpace is as an institutional repository(IR).

What is a Digital Institutional Repository?

“A university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution.”

Clifford A. Lynch,
"Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age" ARL, no. 226 (February 2003): 1-7.

Institutional Repository Resources

See the Implementing DSpace section of this website for tools and information to help you design and build an institutional repository.

In 2004-2005, the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) sponsored several workshops on building an institutional repository, called LEADIRS. See the LEADIRS report for information on each phase of building an IR, along with resources and work sheets to help you plan and build an IR at your institution.

Cambridge-MIT LEADIRS report (pdf)

Mailing Lists

The DSpace Federation maintains a special interest mailing list focused on using DSpace to build an institutional repository.

Examples

See the DSpace Instances page on the DSpace Wiki for links to existing institutional repositories around the world.