In fall 2002, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries and the Hewlett-Packard Company launched DSpace™, an open source digital repository software system. Designed to capture, store, index, preserve and redistribute scholarly research material in digital formats, DSpace™ and institutional repositories have revolutionized how scholars and researchers think about publication and scholarship. Institutional repositories have also sparked a debate as to the production, distribution and interchange of scholarly communication in a digital age. In response to these discussions, in 2003, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries and the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) in conjunction with participants drawn from the campus community began a project to evaluate the need for a digital institutional repository service. The result of this project was the creation of MINDS@UW, a DSpace™ collection for the colleges and universities in the University of Wisconsin system.
MINDS@UW-River Falls is an Institutional Repository for the students, faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. It is intended to provide a “safe haven” for published and unpublished electronic content of any discipline. Content may include research papers, pre-prints, teaching materials, datasets, photographs, videos, learning objects, theses, student projects, posters, conference papers, or other intellectual property in digital form. These items are indexed and described using Dublin Core Metadata standards and are then distributed through a searchable web interface. The project is organized into five levels: the community, the sub-community, the collections, the items, and the bitstreams. The community acts as the host organization and is responsible for overseeing the project and governing the policies and procedures for the sub-communities and collections. The sub-communities can consist of individual departments, research units or offices within the community’s organization. The collections are groups or sets of individual items that share a common theme, such as Master’s theses or Dissertations, Department newsletters or a Professor's collection of articles, etc. The items consist of the individual papers, reports, and etc. that make up the collection. Finally, the bitstreams are the individual files (pdf files, doc files, power point slides, jpg files) that make up the digital content of the item.
In 2005, Chalmer Davee Library took the first steps towards sponsoring a community and sub-communities for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in the MINDS@UW project. By August 2005, the Library had posted its first collection to the site. Working in collaboration with the Office of Grants & Research, the first collection consisted of undergraduate student and faculty posters from the University’s 2005 Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity Day (RSCA Day). Since the creation of that first collection, the RSCA Day collection has grown to include posters from the 2006 and 2007 RSCA days.
In September 2006, a second collection was added to the UWRF Office of Grants & Research sub-community. This second collection includes the articles published in Endeavor, the electronic journal of undergraduate RSCA (Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities) that is published by the Office of Grants & Research.
In August 2007, the MINDS@UW-River Falls community expanded with the addition of the UWRF Geology sub-community. Working in collaboration with Professor Bill Cordua of the UWRF Geology department, the William S. Cordua, Ph.D collection includes 54 short popular science articles written on mineralogical and geological subjects. These articles first appeared in the Leaverite News newsletter of the St. Croix Rockhounds in Stillwater, MN. Dr. Cordua continues to write for the Leaverite News and this collection will grow as new articles are released.
In September 2007, the MINDS@UW-River Falls community added 2 more sub-communities: the Office of Outreach and Graduate Studies and the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development. The Office of Outreach and Graduate Studies will contain 2 collections that consist of electronic copies of the Plan A (Graduate Theses) and Plan B (Graduate Research Papers) required for graduate studies. The St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development will contain articles and presentations that provide information on the Institute. Both sub-communities are in the planning stages, so look for materials to be added!
In January 2008, the UWRF English Department sub-community was established. The first collection in the sub-community is the English Studies collection which is comprised of exemplary student papers from a variety of classes taught in the English Department at the University. Papers were selected by individual faculty members within the department.
Now, the Library is taking the next step towards establishing more sub-communities and collections within the MINDS@UW-River Falls community. If you would like to take part in the project or if you have any questions, please contact Heidi Southworth at heidi.southworth@uwrf.edu or (715) 425-3924.
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