Self-archiving practices of Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals at the University of Zambia (UNZA)

Abstract

Open access has emerged as a major means of communicating scholarly outputs in the research community. To promote open access to knowledge and showcase the research outputs of a research community. Universities and research institutions have established institutional repositories (IRs) and encourage researchers to deposit or archive digital copies of their research outputs in IRs to allow for open access. This paper reports on an investigation of the self-archiving practices of researches at the University of Zambia with a focus on library and information science professionals. The study adopted qualitative research methods and used an interview guide to collect data from the 12 participants from the LIS department. The study set the following specific objectives: 1) to establish the awareness and knowledge of researchers in self-archiving, 2) to determine researcher’s perceptions about self-archiving, 3) determine the platforms that researchers use and prefer for archiving, and 4) to find out the challenges that hinder researchers from practicing self-archiving. The findings revealed that LIS professionals are aware and knowledgeable about self-archiving with the major source being personal research about open access (OA) publishing and self-archiving, seminars, colleagues and awareness campaigns from the University Library. The study also revealed that LIS lecturers consider self-archiving as an important channel for increasing their own research’s visibility, accessibility and impact. Despite being aware and knowledgeable about self-arching and its benefit, self-achieving is not as widely practiced as was expected. The study identified lack of technical support, limited time as well as lack of skills as major challenges to self-archiving. The paper recommends massive awareness campaigns about self-archiving focusing on the benefits and relevance of OA. There is also need for the university to adopt strategies and policies that either mandates or encourages self-archiving to research publications.