Ernie Ingles: Why Repositories?

Ernie Ingles, Vice Provost and Chief Librarian at University of Alberta, says that institutional repositoriy development ?brings [libraries] right back into the mainstream of providing services to our faculty and graduate students.? During this period of tight budgets, libraries must decide whether supporting a digital repository is an ?add on? or an ?instead of? in their resource allocations. ?In my opinion, institutional repositories are here to stay," says Ingles. If new funds cannot be found to support them, "they have to be considered an 'instead of' because?it?s all about [the library?s] relevancy.?