RSP Workshop for Repository Administrators, 4th Aug 2010

This event was aimed at people who work with the day-to-day running and adminstration of a repostitory, and therefore had a much more practical slant to the sessions, and sharing of tips between the delegates was encouraged throughout all of the sessions, so it proved to be a useful and enjoyable day!

The day started with an introduction, and then a short talk on the background to Open Access.  Rachel Proudfoot then delivered a session on Contacting Publishers: Issues and Tips.  The main points I took from this were:

• Look at the Sherpa request letter template, and also template for author's to use if they need to contact the publishers directly.  (We could supply this to author's when we have to ask them to contact the publishers)
• See if you can get a blanket response from publishers so you do not have to keep contacting them.  However it was noted that some publishers request that you contact them for each item.
• Record the responses that are received from each publisher.
• Consider having a formalised 'chase policy' to track publishers that dont respond.
• Feedback publishers reponses to depositors.
• Standardise version terminology to reduce confusion.