IReL Irish Research electronic Library

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IReLIrish Research electronic Library
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IReL - definition

• IReL the Irish Research eLibrary is a
  nationally-funded electronic research library,
  providing online access to full-text articles
  from thousands of peer-reviewed research
  publications across a range of disciplines and to
  thousands of ebooks

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IReL Members

• 7 universities
• research staff of Funding Authorities
• Staff in Research councils
• IRCHSS
• IRCSET
• Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
• Institutes of Technology

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Research Context

• Major growth in research funding
• Science Foundation Ireland 2000 640m
• Higher Education Authority funded PRTLI
• Cycles 1, 2, 3 - 605m
• Cycle 4 2007 - 230m

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IReL establishment

• Science Foundation Ireland and Irish University
  Association Librarians
• Centrally negotiated
• Centrally administered
• Economies of scale
• Value for money
• Focus on ICT and Biotechnology

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Funding

• Phase 1 SFI/HEA 50/50 2004-08 20.25m
• ICT and Biotechnology
• Plus existing spend 5m
• Phase 2 HEA 2006-09 15m
• Humanities and Social Sciences

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Strategic support

• Ministerial support
• CEO of S F I
• Research Deans

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Choice of resources

• Collaboration with Principal Investigators
  Teams
• Identification of major packages
• Identification of single titles
• eBooks
• Inner and outer rings

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IReL Content

• 6,000 Science/Technology titles
• 18,000 Humanities/ Social Sciences titles
• 40m articles
• Portico licence

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Negotiation

• IRIS Ltd as agent
• Tender for 3rd party negotiator
• Definition of criteria for acquisition
• Costs links to existing spend
• JISC model licence
• IReL Steering Group
• IReL Monitoring Group

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IReL Impact Survey 2007

• Examined
• User demography
• Use of IReL Resources
• How researchers use IReL
• Gaps in provision
• User awareness

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IReL Impact Survey results
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IReL Impact Survey results
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IReL Stats Report 2006

• Comparison with 2005 shows a healthy trend of
  increased usage and lower costs per use
• The average cost per journal article download
  decreased by 6 to 1.82 in 2005 it was 1.94.
• The average cost per database search fell by 12
  to 1.90 in 2005 it was 2.16.
• The average cost per e-book/reference download
  was down 4 to 43.48 in 2005 it was 45.19.
• E-journals represent particularly good value when
  full-text downloads are compared with the cost of
  an inter-library loan transaction.
• Within this category, services with smaller
  numbers of journals received more intensive
  usage, a trend continued from 2005.

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IReL Stats Report 2006

• Of 24 e-journal services analysed by download
  band, over half of the journals in 13 services
  were downloaded 300 times (true of 7 out of 16
  services in 2005).
• 84 individual journals had downloads of 3000
  articles compared with 57 in 2005, collectively
  accounting for a 50 increase in downloads in
  this category.
• Cost per e-journal download decreased for 19 out
  of 30 products, remained the same for one and
  increased in the remaining 10 instances.
• Six of 8 databases also subscribed in 2005 showed
  increased search activity and lower costs per
  search
• Only two resources featured in the
  e-book/reference category which continued to
  attract limited uptake in 2006.
• Usage by subject showed strong uptake in the
  Biology/Microbiology, Chemistry/Biochemistry and
  Medicine categories. The latter gained from the
  inclusion of a number of new resources in the
  2006 analysis.

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IReL Phase 3, 2008-10

• Extension to Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
• Extension to 11 Institutes of Technology

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IReL Strategic Issues

• Use of IRIS Ltd 3rd party
• Communication with principal investigators and
  teams
• Steering Group
• Big deal v individual titles
• Reinforcement of commercial publishing model
• Monitoring
• Branding

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IReL-Open

• Institutional repository for each university
• National portal

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IReL-Open context

• Enhance the profile of Irish research
• Maximise the impact of Irish research
• Make research data available to Irish researchers
• Increase accountability of Irish universities
• Make publicly-funded research available publicly
• Provide means of archiving results

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IReL-Open

• Provide free-to-user access to research results
• Add value to other components of the national
  information infrastructure Expertiseireland,
  IReL
• Scaleability
• Development

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IReL-Open National Portal

• Hosted by Enterprise Ireland
• Single point of access to national research
  output
• Harvested from University Research Repositories
• Includes published research across all
  disciplines
• Data sets

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IReL-Open Content

• Theses
• digital objects,
• data-sets,
• cultural heritage,
• images,
• grey-literature

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IReL-Open Status

• Formal Opening April 2007
• Launched May 2008
• IUA IR Working Group
• Metadata and Harvesting
• Standard Licenses
• Local Implementation

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IReL Open Launch May 2008
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Links

• IReL
• http//www.irel-open.ie/
• IReL-Open
• http//www.irelibrary.ie/