Migratory Patterns in IRs: CONTENTdm, Digital Commons and Flying the Coop

What is the importance of institutional history and special collections in a digital environment? Should these pieces of history have their own digital platform or be merged with the institutional repository? What role do repositories play in the institutional environment? What impact do digital historical collections have on the stakeholder contingent as well as the global community? The speakers will discuss the rationale behind migrating collections from CONTENTdm to institutional repositories (all using bepress’s Digital Commons platform). Reasons range from subscription costs to file format concerns to increased search optimization. The migratory act will be covered in terms of method used (Excel spreadsheets, bepress add-on service, and manual) along with suggestions and lessons learned. Comparisons in usage statistics between CONTENTdm and Digital Commons demonstrating increased access to collections will also be discussed. Ultimately, the speakers hope to engage in a dialogue on the initial questions of this abstract