Institutional Repositories: Thinking Beyond the Box

"In February 2008, the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University made history, unanimously passing a revolutionary open access mandate that, for the first time, would require faculty to give the university copies of their research, along with a nonexclusive license to distribute them electronically. In the press, Harvard University librarian Robert Darnton proudly spoke of reshaping 'the landscape of learning' and fixing a damaged, overly expensive system of scholarly communication. And the very fulcrum of Harvard's vision is a library-administered institutional repository (IR). 'In place of a closed, privileged and costly system,' Darnton told the New York Times, Harvard's mandate—and its IR—would lead the way toward 'a digital commonwealth in which ideas will flow freely in all directions.'"