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The New NSU Digital Library

The NSU Libraries established a digital repository in January of 2022 for the purpose of gathering together digital materials from disparate locations and making them available to the NSU community.

Over the years, the NSU Libraries have collected various types of digital materials that have been stored in multiple locations. These include:

  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Commencement Programs
  • Yearbooks
  • Back issues of The Northeastern newspaper
  • Materials from library events
  • Tutorial videos
  • Images from the University Archives

Near the end of 2020, members of the Library Web Committee saw a need to establish a single digital repository to house all of these materials, and also to provide a place where faculty from outside the library could place articles, Open Educational Resources, and other works.

Throughout 2021, the Web Committee and a newly formed Digital Collections Committee worked with vendor Ubiquity Press to establish and populate the NSU Digital Library, which was opened to public view in January of 2022.

NSU Digital Library Repository Policies

Policy Framework

The NSU Digital Library Repository Policy is one component of the Library’s policy framework, and should be considered in the context of other existing Library policies, including the Collection Development Policy, the Archives Collection Development Policy, the Special Collections Collection Development Policy, and the Gifts Policy. It also takes into consideration the Administrative Policies and Procedures of NSU.

This policy is reviewed and updated on a regular basis. The version history is as follows:

  • Initial policy adopted 12/14/2021

WHAT is the NSU Digital Library?

The NSU Digital Library is the home of the collected scholarship and creative works of Northeastern State University faculty, staff, students, and area community members. These open collections, organized and made accessible by the NSU Libraries, demonstrate the University's commitment to the idea that shared information and academic collaboration are essential to the "progress of knowledge" in our global community.
Through the Digital Library, NSU Libraries seeks to 

  • Diversify scholarly and creative canons through inclusive and equitable practices
  • Enrich scholarship through the digital preservation of and open access to the University’s scholarly output and creative works
  • Further teaching and learning opportunities by facilitating the publication of open educational resources (OERs)
  • Foster understanding of the opportunities, rights, and responsibilities related to online publishing
  • Increase awareness of the University’s scholarly and creative activities and those of its partners

Proposing New Collections

All faculty, staff, administrators, students, academic units, and administrative offices are welcome to propose new collections. The NSU Libraries will prioritize collections according to the following criteria.

  • Relevance to and impact on the University mission, vision, and values
  • Relevance to and impact on the Libraries' mission, vision, and values
  • Relevance to and impact on curricula and student learning
  • Relevance to and impact on scholarly communication (e.g., Will there be access to full text?)
  • Extent of resources needed (e.g., Is the material digital or does it require scanning?)

Administration Of Collections

Healthy collections will develop from healthy partnerships. Those interested in using the NSU Digital Library to deposit and share work will be primarily responsible for their management. The Libraries will guide and support these efforts. Furthermore, librarians are prepared to instruct and assist contributors with copyright and licensing questions. 

Revisions To Content

After content has been publicly posted, content creators may ask community administrators to revise either the metadata or document files; reasons for these revisions should be documented. Contributors may request minor revisions which include correcting typographical and grammatical errors, and adding or correcting metadata to aid discovery. Contributors requesting more significant revisions will be asked to provide a new, revised version. Significant revisions include modifications to research data, analysis, conclusions, and other changes that could otherwise alter the nature of the work.

Preservation Of Content

Given the dynamic nature of technology, the Libraries will make every effort to preserve content, but cannot guarantee that every file in every format will endure and remain usable due to hardware, software, and other technological changes.

The Libraries' repository vendor, Ubiquity Press, takes the following steps to ensure that content is preserved:

  • File checksumming (aka fixity checks) is performed with every file upload, and the checksum is registered in a database for later reference.
  • All cloud components and data are automatically copied to backup on a daily basis - the vendor commits to being able to provide these backups to NSU if requested.
  • Universal Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) are assigned to each work and file. In addition, the vendor commits to being able to support DOI minting for works if NSU requests this.
  • Information security (including ensuring availability and integrity of metadata and files in the repository) is provided by the vendor to the ISO 27001 standard.

WHO Can Sign in and What Can They Do?

All NSU community members with valid email accounts @nsuok.edu may register as institutional users of the NSU Digital Library. Registration will allow access to content that is restricted to institutional users only, and will permit users to submit content for inclusion in the repository.

Individuals without a valid NSU email account may not register as users, and are not able to directly submit content to the repository. A co-creator/owner of content with a valid NSU email account must submit content on their behalf.

HOW Can I Participate?

Faculty

Please use the online submission form to upload your files. During the submission process, you will be asked to review our license, and indicate your consent to its terms.
Any relevant publisher policies will be reviewed by library staff, and the work will be posted as soon as the review is complete.

Departments, Centers, Units

Units should contact digitallibrary@nsuok.edu and identify an administrative contact, who will be authorized to manage submissions. Training for administrators will be provided by library staff.

For publications at the department/unit level — such as working paper series — the unit is responsible for establishing editorial guidelines, and for ensuring compliance with existing policies.

The administrative contact in each unit acts as a conduit for information, and disseminates to the unit’s authors all relevant documents, or communications regarding the procedures and policies for the repository. This includes, but is not limited to, information on author copyright responsibilities.

Students

If you are a student whose academic program requires you to deposit your thesis, dissertation, or graduate capstone in the NSU Digital Library prior to receipt of your diploma, you should create an account in the repository and review the instructions for preparing your document prior to beginning the submission process. It is recommended that you review these requirements prior to final formatting and submission of your paper to your committee or program. After you have successfully defended your thesis/dissertation and have had any required revisions reviewed and approved, you may submit following these procedures.

WHY Deposit Work In The Digital Library?

Discoverability

Works in the repository are discoverable by major search engines which increases the visibility of your work. Content creators who opt to share their work through the NSU Digital Library can log into their accounts and view how often their work has been downloaded.

Systemic Equity

Making your research freely available to anyone with internet access reduces financial barriers to information. This is particularly true with previously published scholarship often locked behind a paywall, rental or subscription fee. Moreover, legal deposits of previously published work to open access repositories like the Digital Library help bypass some of the legal and political mechanisms that favor corporations at the expense of scholars.

WHAT Does the Digital Library Collect?

Any type of file can be made accessible through the repository: documents, audio files, video files, data sets, presentation slides, research posters, software code, etc.
Currently, the Digital Library has theses, dissertations, commencement programs, yearbooks, newspapers, videos, and photographs.

WHAT Does the Digital Library Not Collect?

  • Items of a personal nature
  • Materials not relevant to the missions, visions, and values of NSU Libraries and the University
  • Materials not otherwise relevant to curricula of NSU or the learning needs of the NSU community

WHAT Criteria are Used to Determine Whether to Accept a Submission to the Digital Library?

All current NSU students, faculty, and staff are eligible to contribute to the NSU Digital Library during their course of study or employment at the University. Faculty and staff may also contribute content created prior to their employment at NSU. NSU alumni are also eligible to contribute; preference will be given for work created during their course of study at the University.

University Libraries staff generally review and approve the inclusion of all content submitted to the repository. However, approval may be delegated to other NSU departments for specific collections such as theses and dissertations.

Submitted content is routed into a mediated publication queue; content will not be posted until the following is verified:

  • The contributor is affiliated with NSU;
  • The content aligns with the NSU Libraries' collection priorities;
  • The content has been submitted to the appropriate collection;
  • All metadata required for the specific collection has been supplied;
  • The contributor has completed the submission agreement (as part of the online submission process for direct submissions, or as a separate document for mediated submissions); and
  • The file(s) supplied is the correct version, is not corrupted/unreadable, and (in the case of previously published work) does not violate publishers’ posting policies.

HOW Can the Materials be Accessed?

The NSU Digital Library is intended as a resource for open access research. Materials will, in general, be made available to the public freely and without barrier. Some content may have limited access due to an embargo period, copyright or licensing, or other issues. The following restrictions and embargoes are allowed:

  • Access may be restricted to members of the NSU community by e-mail address.
  • Access to the full text may be temporarily blocked (to any user) for an embargo period normally not to exceed 2 years.
  • After the embargo period, the content will be openly accessible.

Discovery and Use of Content

Repository content can be split into two categories: a work (e.g., paper, image) and its description. Descriptions are publicly shared and discoverable by major search engines. Content creators are encouraged to also share their works with the public. Enabling users to view, download, print, and otherwise use your work increases access to, and discoverability of, those works. Content creators are further encouraged to assign licenses to those works to communicate what uses are and aren't permitted. 

The contents of the Digital Library are indexed by major search engines and open access tools including Unpaywall and OpenDOAR. This means that anyone with access to the internet can find a description of a work in the repository by searching Google, Bing, and other search tools. Whether or not people are able to access more than the description and the file(s) itself is determined by the content creator or the copyright holder of the work.

HOW Do I Request the Removal of Content From the Digital Library?

In order to preserve the integrity and accuracy of the scholarly record, works contributed to the NSU Digital Library will only be withdrawn under limited circumstances. Such circumstances include notification by an author, contributor, or other affected party that a work: (a) contains factual inaccuracies, (b) contains plagiarism, (c) infringes on copyright or any other intellectual property right, (d) infringes on an individual or corporate privacy right, or (e) includes defamatory statements.

Any request for withdrawal must be made to the Executive Director of NSU Libraries, who will consult with the DIgital Collections Committee before making a decision. 

Requests are subject to the following procedures:

  • Requests for withdrawal may be made by authors or contributors of the work in question, or by any other affected party.
  • Requests must be made in writing.
  • Pending a final determination, full-text access to the work in question will be temporarily disabled for all users.
  • No content will be permanently removed from the repository without an attempt to reach the author.
  • All determinations as to permanent withdrawal will be made within (10) working days of the initial request.

If it is determined that a work should be withdrawn from the repository, full-text access to that work will be removed permanently for all users (except Digital Library administrators). However, in order to preserve the scholarly record—and because the withdrawn work may have been cited using the repository URL—a metadata “tombstone” will be maintained at the original URL. This will include the original metadata for the work, as well as a note in the record that describes the purpose for the withdrawal: either “Removed at author’s request”, “Removed at NSU Libraries’ discretion”, or “Removed by legal order.”

Under exceptional circumstances, the metadata record may be removed permanently (except for access retained by administrators) along with the full-text of the work. This will occur in the following cases:

  • The request for withdrawal/removal is based on a personal safety concern.
  • The item for which withdrawal/removal is requested was posted to the repository by the NSU Libraries as part of a digitization project and the creator(s) did not explicitly opt in to a record of the work being publicly available.

NSU Digital Library Statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

  • The NSU Libraries have established the NSU Digital Library repository to house historic and current materials of interest to the NSU community and to make them publicly accessible online.
  • The Libraries abide by professional standards including the Library Bill of Rights, the ALA Code of Ethics, and the Libraries' Mission, Vision, and Values. The Digital Collections Committee also aligns itself with the Libraries' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. The following statements are particularly relevant to the Digital Library
    • Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
    • Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
    • We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.
    • We affirm the inherent dignity and rights of every person. We work to recognize and dismantle systemic and individual biases; to confront inequity and oppression; to enhance diversity and inclusion; and to advance racial and social justice in our libraries, ommunities, profession, and associations through awareness, advocacy, education, collaboration, services, and allocation of resources and spaces.
    • We value the preservation of culture and ideas through the conservation of artifacts and the preservation of selected content for future use.
    • We encourage the free flow of diverse information and ideas without censorship.
    • [As librarians we work together] to advance a more inclusive and equitable library environment.

We acknowledge that materials produced in the past are likely to include problematic elements, including language, imagery, and assumptions rooted in intolerance and discrimination.

We do not condone such attitudes or elements, but we recognize that they are a real and regrettable part of the history of NSU and the broader culture, and that they still exist today.

We cannot change the past. We strive to represent it honestly and completely, without bias.

As we gather additional materials to add to the collection, we are committed to seeking out and amplifying the voices of marginalized people. This includes historical materials that represent experiences other than those of the dominant culture, as well as current and future works that do the same. To this end we will:

  • Solicit materials from organizations on campus that represent marginalized people, such as the Stonewall Equality Alliance, Association of Black Collegians, Native American Student Association, and the International Student Organization.
  • When requesting materials from the general faculty, include language that specifically requests diverse perspectives.
  • Seek out materials in the University Archives that showcase diverse student and faculty experiences.

Privacy

When Using the Repository

Whenever a user visits the Libraries' website, certain information is gathered and stored automatically. This information does not generally identify the user personally. Information that is automatically collected and stored when visiting the repository site includes:

  • the Internet domain and IP address from which the repository was accessed
  • the type of browser and operating system
  • date and time
  • pages visited.

This automatically collected information is only used internally for technical troubleshooting, to monitor compliance with NSU's Acceptable Computer and Network Use Policy, to improve the usability of our website, and to record aggregate statistics.

Personal Information Submitted by Users

The system collects personal information submitted during the deposit process and when subscribing to the repository’s alerting service.

Submitted information will be used only for the purpose for which you submitted it, with the exception that the Libraries may make reasonable statistical reports that do not identify particular individuals. The Libraries do not share this information with private organizations or allow it to be used for commercial purposes. The Libraries do contract with Application Service Providers (ASPs) to provide some services, but the Libraries require ASPs to respect the confidentiality of the information placed on hosted servers. While we may disclose information about use of the Digital Library in aggregate (such as server use statistics), we will not disclose to unaffiliated parties any information that could be used to identify individuals or their use of the Libraries' resources, except as required by University policies or as mandated by law.
Please see the Libraries' User Privacy Policy for more information.

Deposit Agreement

Users who deposit works in the NSU Digital Library agree to give certain permissions to Northeastern State University. These permissions vary based on which of three levels of visibility are selected for a given work:

  • Public
  • Institution
  • Private

The full Deposit Agreement can be viewed at the link below, which also appears at the bottom of each page of the repository.

Connections to Other Organizations and Institutions

NSU Libraries work with several partners to provide the Digital Library. Here is some information about how those organizations interact.

Thank you to the following institutions, whose policies we used as models for our own: