University Digital Conservancy: A Platform to Publish, Share, and Preserve the University's Scholarship

Abstract

The University Digital Conservancy (UDC) is a web-based tool that provides free, worldwide access to research and scholarship contributed by faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota, including research papers, pre-prints, presentations and research data - often meeting funding open access mandates (ie. NIH, NSF). It is also a showcase for original student works -- such as dissertations, masters and professional papers, and honors theses -- increasing visibility to our teaching and learning outputs. Finally, the UDC is an institutional repository (IR) built to preserve digital university assets that have traditionally gone to the University Archives, such as department newsletters and administrative reports. The UDC software provides searchable, full-text access to deposited work that will rank highly in web search engines (like Google) and also ensures long-term access to content with permanent urls (no more broken links). This library-run repository began in 2007 and now contains over 23,000 digital works that have been downloaded over 1.5 million times. (Download stats as of May 1, 2012.)