Functional capabilities of higher education institutions’ repositories - members of the program “Priority-2030”

Abstract

In order to study the composition and contentof repositories of scientific publications, to identify their functionality, 106 websites of domestic universities – members of the program«Priority-2030» have been monitored. The study has found that only 38% of the total quantity of institutions sites maintain publication repositories. At the same time, most of them include a small number of objects, or limited by the chronological framework.The search capabilities of repositories have been covered, as well as tools for managing search results. It has been determined that repositories mostly provide simple and advanced options for information retrieval, with the ability to use Boolean operators, endings shortening, faceted navigation, ranking search results. It has been found that not all repositories are equipped with instructions and recommendations on searching in them, which makes it difficult for inexperienced users to operate them.It has been revealed that the repository texts are provided with bibliographic metadata: as a rule, they are the author, the title, the imprint, and the source. However, some of them present more extended information: the detailed annotation, the abstract, the picture of the cover. The repositories are not equipped with linguistic tools, which prevents effective information search.It has been noted that the repositories studied are difficult to be found for a remote user. It is necessary to ensure their visibility, to provide information about existing repositories to potential users.In the conclusion, the benefits of creating repositories are enumerated: strengthening the authority of the institution, increasing the demand for library information resources, ensuring the visibility and accessibility of scientific and educational materials, and accelerating the knowledge exchange.