Fostering new roles for librarians. Skills set for repository managers: results of a survey in Italy

Abstract

The open access movement in scholarly communication has considerably grown over the last ten years, and has subsequently driven an increase in the establishment of institutional repositories (IRs). This change led to develop and to define new professional roles and skills for the IRs’ effective management.

Traditionally, metadata curation has been regarded as a strategic element for repositories and therefore the library and information community has taken up the management of these digital archives. However, it has become clear that traditional librarian professional skills, such as metadata expertise and curation, leave now the way to a richer set of skills such as management and communication skills, technical skills as well as expertise on access rights and on preserving digital content.