Supporting Data Preservation Through Institutional Repositories of the Academic Libraries in South Africa

Abstract

Institutional repositories (IRs) are open access platforms that could be viewed as ideal platforms for supporting the management of the scientific knowledge which enhances knowledge generation, preservation, use, and sharing and for increasing the scale of research performance in a research community. This chapter investigates the use of IRs in preserving data at selected academic libraries in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, guided by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Lifecycle Model. The interpretivist research paradigm following a qualitative research approach through a case study was employed. The findings of the study reveal uniform IRs for data preservation in the participated academic libraries. The findings also show a strong need for training and workshops to equip the librarians and researchers with the necessary skills and knowledge for preserving data in the IRs. A lack of resources is the biggest threat to preserving data for most academic libraries.