Determining the factors influencing the level of awareness and usage of open source digital repository software by academic librarians in India
ISSN: 2059-5816
Article publication date: 4 August 2020
Issue publication date: 4 September 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the level of awareness and usage of open source digital repository software (DRS). The paper also studies the factors, which influence the level of awareness and usage of different open source DRS by academic librarians in India.
Design/methodology/approach
The study administered an online questionnaire to academic librarians in India to know their level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. The questionnaire aimed to gather the awareness and usage of open source DSR. In total, 374 complete responses were collected from academic librarians in India and the collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Moreover, Fishers’ exact test was used to identify whether factors i.e. qualification and participation in workshop/seminar influence the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS.
Findings
The results of the study reveal that the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS, namely, DSpace (Mean = 2.92, SD = 0.906) and Greenstone digital library software (GSDL) (Mean = 2.18, SD = 0.699) are high amongst the academic librarians in India. In total, 33.4%, 11.5% of the participants are using DSpace and GSDL, respectively, on regular basis. Fishers’ exact test shows that factor(s) i.e. qualifications and participation in workshop/seminar affect the level of awareness and usage of open source DRS. The results show that there exits strong relation between participation in workshop/seminar and awareness and usage of DSpace (Fishers’ exact test = 13.473, p < 0.05).
Originality/value
This paper is the new type of study exploring level of awareness and usage of open source DRS by academic librarians in India. It identifies the factors that affect the awareness and usage of open source DRS. It is the first study to analyze the statistical significance between Indian librarians’ participation in workshop/seminar and their level of awareness and usage of different open source DRS.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank editorial team and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions and meticulous reading of the manuscript.
Citation
Kampa, R.K. and Patra, N.K. (2020), "Determining the factors influencing the level of awareness and usage of open source digital repository software by academic librarians in India", Digital Library Perspectives, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 303-317. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-05-2020-0042
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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