Abstract:
Rationale of Study – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of institutional
repositories in supporting teaching, learning and research in four selected
universities in Kenya.
Methodology – Mixed methods research approach and a multiple case design was
used for this study. Data was collected using questionnaires administered to 370
students and 322 academic staff randomly in the four universities in Kenya. Face
to face interviews were used to collect data from the university librarians, system
librarians and research directors in these universities.
Findings – The study revealed that content in the selected institutional repositories
was dominated by grey literature and was found to be inadequate, sometimes
outdated and of poor quality. The findings also showed that although IRs in the
selected universities contained many types of material covering many subjects,
each specific subject area contained only a few materials. In addition, the results
indicated that the rate of content recruitment in the selected IRs was very low.
Implications – The findings of this study can contribute to discussions about the
reasons for poor content recruitment in IRs and used to develop an appropriate
model; it is expected that staff will deposit their scholarly content in institutional
repositories more readily.