Something old, something new, something bold, something cool: A marriage of two repositories

Abstract

For the past several years, many libraries have been developing institutional repositories to house their Open Access publishing efforts, creating a showcase for their faculty’s research. Some of those same libraries have also been creating sizable digital collections, often built from digitized versions of materials in their special collections. The University of South Florida Tampa Library combined these two groups as a new department, Digital Scholarship Services. The marriage of these two repositories has created new synergies between staff in complementary areas of the library, combining unique skill sets from each group to offer new services to faculty. This article discusses why this change was made, examines some of the benefits and growing pains of this change, and showcases some of the unusual projects that have resulted. These collections not only highlight the university’s work but provide materials professors can use to enhance their course curricula, leveraging technology to engage students in new and innovative ways.