Abstract:
Institutional repositories are emerged to facilitate preservation and to disseminate research outputs in any academic institutions. These days the world is changing from manual/analog to digital services, so it is very important to collect, store, disseminate and create accessibility to imperative documents, research reports and publications produced by faculty and graduate students in the universities. The importance of institutional repositories is to offer collaborative production and dissemination of scholarly information towards assisting academic and research institutions. Due to the absence of Institutional Repository (IR) in Jimma University (JU) local resources are scattered everywhere in the campus without reaching the communities easily plus it was disorganized, deteriorated, torn out and covered with dusts on their placement. The mainobjective of this study was to assess the status and challenges of institutional repositories development in Jimma University and instigate the need for the successful implementation of institutional repository in the university. The method used for the study was survey method; stratified sampling technique and different instruments like questionnaire, interview and observations were used. The study result shows that there is no institutional repository and policy in the university. The major barriers of implementing IR were found to be training, awareness, administrative support and skills. In order to implement institutional repository effectively, it needs faster Internet connectivity, availability of up-to-date hardware’s and software's, training of the researchers and awareness creation. It is recommended that the establishment of IR supported with policy is vital. In addition to that upgrading of the librarians education, training of the researchers and the university community to submit their resources to the institutional repository willingly is very influential so that information and knowledge can properly be shared without time and distance impediments. Inaddition to that university libraries shall follow and establish national digitization standards and consortium in the country. Jimma University is not an exceptional and should have a well developed andeffective institutional repository to fully satisfy its own researchers, students, and the community. So, to implement IR and to continue with that pace, the university should have to create commitment to the concerned body to implement IR, so that local resources can be available for the entire community.
