Since 2021, SURFACE, Syracuse University’s institutional repository, has seen substantial growth in both content and commitment to long-term digital preservation. This progress is largely due to the Syracuse University Libraries’ investment in a dedicated three-person team focused on sustainability and development. As we face emerging technologies and AI, we question whether AI can replace human labor to reduce costs. Despite the financial appeal of cost-cutting, our presentation underscores the essential role of human labor. Through community-focused outreach and technical advancements like mass minting DOIs and restructuring our platform, we have demonstrated the irreplaceable value of human involvement. This presentation will explore the human labor behind the growth and maintenance of an Institutional Repository, arguing that AI cannot replace the nuanced and strategic efforts of human workers. We will discuss how our distributed labor approach has fostered a vibrant community and ensured long-term sustainability and preservation. Additionally, we will address the importance of outreach in transforming repositories into dynamic spaces of shared resources produced and maintained by collective effort. Through real-world examples, we will illustrate the limitations of AI and the critical need for human expertise in managing and preserving digital resources.

The California State University system is the largest public university system in the United States

but does not have many shared services amongst the 23 campuses. The digital repository

ecosystem with the CSUs has grown from individual campus repositories with no shared

governance structure to a three-pronged systemwide service that has a steering committee,

working groups, shared documentation/guidelines, and an annual meeting. But growing together

isn’t always easy! The campuses have different resources, different expertise levels, and very

different needs. This presentation examines how we have gone from an individual campus

approach with no centralized infrastructure to one of shared repositories, shared documentation,

workflows by consensus, and collaborative co-working sessions. Over the past decade, we have

created governance structures, committees and communication paths, open forums and annual

meetings. We have worked to bring each other along, sharing knowledge and work across this

large (and under-funded) system. This collaborative approach has been slow at times, but with our

ScholarWorks Institutional Repository, the CSU Digital Archives, and the CSU Open Journals, we

are working together to build our skills and capacity across the system – together.

Recent internal reports have shown conclusively that researcher engagement with the University of Oxford’s green Open Access (OA) service, consisting of Symplectic Elements and Oxford’s institutional research repository, ORA, has reduced since the last REF period ended in 2021. Around 30% of articles follow the University’s ‘Act on Acceptance’ (AoA) policy, which asks authors to deposit a digital copy of the accepted manuscript of journal articles and conference papers within three months of acceptance.

Many funder policies are now out of step with AoA; action within three months is no longer sufficient as they require immediate OA on publication. The forthcoming Research Excellence Framework OA Policy also sees a move towards publication as the point for action.

Publisher Transformative Agreements (TAs) have also had an impact on the decline in reliance on ‘green’ open access due to the wider inclusion and greater coverage of OA publishing through TAs, whether or not the author has been in receipt of research funding.

This presentation explores the challenges for institutional repositories in ensuring that they can continue to collect OA content through innovative technical developments whilst providing value and vision to the academic community, using Oxford as a case study.

To support our communities is to support the students, faculty, and staff who live there; the politics, society, and environment upon which our campus is situated; the potential of our future students; and an empowered, educated, and engaged populace. Towards that goal, in 2015, the Cal Poly Humboldt Library opened their institutional repository and library publishing services to the community. In the ten years since, the library has added three online community collections and experienced a steady growth of community publications across the first six years before leveling out at 10-15 publications annually.

These community engagements have brought a wide range of benefits to the campus and community, including:

• scholarly communications work for student assistants, advancing their skills, engagement, and post-graduation opportunities

• expanded educational programming and opportunities to students across campus

• greater collaboration between the university with the community

• fundraising and marketing for both the community and the university

• raised awareness to local environmental and social justice issues

This presentation will detail the operations of the program; the benefits to the community, students, and university; and the resources expected to sustain a community publishing service.