From Stacks to Screens: Improving Access to Theses and Dissertations with Digitization and Automation

ABSTRACT

Institutional repositories are valuable platforms that facilitate access to the research output of an institution. Theses and dissertations are preserved at most higher education institutions and are valuable materials to prioritize for digitization when building an institutional repository. The purpose of this case study is to share reproducible workflows for digitization, enhanced with automation, that can be adopted by other institutions who aim to increase accessibility and discoverability of their unique institutional research. Few studies have shared their workflows in a detailed, transparent way that can be reproduced by others who are interested in taking on digitization projects to improve access and discoverability via an institutional repository.

KEYWORDS:

• accessibility
• automation
• digitization
• theses and dissertations
• workflows

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).