The case of Eureka! : the institutional repository of Alexander Technological Educational Institution of Thessaloniki (Greece)

Abstract

A Greek Educational Institution Library, understanding the needs of its community for the upgrading of the scholarly communication services and aiming not only at following but also at actively participating into the new scholarly communication paradigm, developed, after studying the national and international relevant initiatives, an Open Access Institutional Repository. The Institutional Repository was created in order to contribute to the support of e-science, the protection and interchange of scientific content, as well as the preservation and reinforcement of the cultural production of the Institution. This paper builds upon the case of this repository presenting a general overview of the project tasks since its beginning up to date. The Institutional Repository presented here uses Dspace software of MIT, which capitalizes on the Application servers and the Java programming language advantages. It is hosted on a Linux platform that ensures efficiency, stability and security both on the transaction and data preservation levels. An analysis is also made of the total planning, changes and additions having been implemented into the repository system. The above alterations make the repository system more functional and flexible, while at the same time improve interaction with users, adding value to its services.