The digital shift — that massive movement of information to a wide range of online electronic formats — presents an unprecedented opportunity for sharing knowledge.
Part of the Library’s role as a steward of research includes the management of UWSpace, an open-access repository of scholarly papers generated at the University of Waterloo.
As a free service provided by the Library and managed by Courtney Earl Matthews, Digital Repository Librarian, UWSpace provides researchers with a platform for making their research openly accessible while complying with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy for Publications.
“We’re enabling researchers to share their publicly funded research and increase its impact” says Matthews.
In 2016, the Library hired its first digital archivist, Danielle Robichaud, to oversee the long-term care and accessibility of digitized historical material. She is providing new avenues for accessing Special Collections & Archives’ unique holdings that are currently only available to on-site researchers.
“I need to be thinking about how we digitally share and preserve our holdings today and in the future,’’ Robichaud says.
Our open-access initiatives demonstrate the growing impact the Library has in developing the tools and services necessary for the dissemination and advancement of Waterloo research.
COURTNEY EARL MATTHEWS, Digital Repository Librarian
