Content recruitment and institutional repositories in Kenyan Universities

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in the selected institutional repositories was dominated by grey literature and was found to be inadequate, sometimes outdated and of poor quality.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.