Building an Institutional Repository: A Step-by-Step Guide for Libraries

Why every university library needs a repository

A final year project or doctoral thesis represents years of work. Without a structured repository, that work ends up in a faculty shared drive, a personal USB stick, or a box in a supervisor's office. It becomes invisible — unsearchable, uncitable, and effectively lost to the academic community.

An institutional repository changes that. It creates a permanent, searchable, and citable record of your institution's research output, accessible to future students, researchers, and accreditation bodies.

Step 1: Define your scope and policy

Before you install anything, answer these questions:

• What content types will you accept? (Theses, projects, reports, datasets?)
• What degree levels? (UG, PGD, Master's, PhD?)
• Who approves deposits — supervisors, departments, or the library directly?
• What is your embargo policy for sensitive or commercially sensitive research?
• How long will you retain each item?

Getting these decisions made before launch prevents the messy policy retrofits that plague many repositories in their first year.

Step 2: Set up your metadata schema

Your metadata schema determines how discoverable your repository is. At minimum, capture: title, author(s), supervisor(s), year, department, faculty, degree level, abstract, and keywords.

For maximum discoverability, implement Dublin Core and expose records via the OAI-PMH protocol. This allows Google Scholar, BASE, CORE, and national aggregators to harvest your records automatically.

Step 3: Design the submission workflow

There are two common models:

Student self-submission: Students upload their own work with metadata, and the system routes it through supervisor approval and library review before archiving. This distributes the workload but requires student training.

Library-mediated deposit: Library staff upload on behalf of students after receiving final copies. This ensures metadata quality but creates a bottleneck during submission season.

Most institutions start with library-mediated deposit and move to self-submission as confidence grows.

Step 4: Handle access controls

Not all research should be publicly accessible. Your repository needs to support:

• Open access: visible to anyone, indexed by search engines
• Restricted: authenticated users (staff, students) only
• Embargoed: open after a specified date

Commercial research partnerships or patent applications often require embargo periods. Build this in from the start.

Step 5: Get indexed

Submit your repository to Google Scholar, BASE, and your national aggregator (e.g., MyManuskrip for Malaysian institutions). For Google Scholar, ensure your metadata follows their inclusion guidelines and that your OAI-PMH feed is accessible.

Measuring success

Track deposit volumes per department, search queries, and download counts. These numbers are useful for accreditation submissions and for making the case for continued investment in the repository.

Book a demo of AcadHub Repository to see how we handle these requirements.