Dave Scherer, the Scholarly Repository Specialist at Purdue University, is an IR All-Star due to his outstanding success with the scholarly publishing program in the IR, Purdue e-Pubs, among his many other talents. In particular, his championship of vibrant grey literature in the IR speaks to the value of capturing many different kinds of scholarly output.
With Dave at the helm, Purdue e-pubs offers a wide range of grey literature for readers to browse, just a few of which are: the Historical Documents of the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service Publications, and the Purdue Plant Growth Facility’s Purdue Methods for Rice, Corn, and Arabidopsis Growth. Purdue e-Pubs also houses the proceedings of International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL) Conference, and the Purdue Road School Conference Proceedings, which attract practitioners and academics as well as private- and public-sector readers.
Dave has also been instrumental in making available the Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP), an important collaboration between Purdue and the Indiana Department of Transportation. Purdue Libraries partnered with the University Press to digitize and upload over 1,500 technical reports in Purdue e-Pubs. Visitors come from all 50 states as well as overseas—check out the readership map!—indicating that JTRP is fulfilling its goal of increasing access to state-funded research both nationally and globally. Recently, JTRP surpassed over 1.0 million downloads of their technical reports. Learn more by watching the informative webinar Dave presented entitled “IRs Supporting Community Engagement, Part 3: Open-Access Transportation Research at Purdue University.”
Rounding out his publishing success, Dave told us that conferences on campus, which the library can now help manage, provide great exposure for the IR. He developed an excellent partnership with the Office of Engagement, which now sends interested faculty his way—Dave’s found that they often want to publish related books after a conference. He also describes helping faculty by offering to publish their journals as well as undergraduate journals, giving students a chance to learn about the scholarly publishing process.
Dave continues to share his experience and lessons learned with the library community. Written with Burton Callicott and Andrew Wesolek, Dave’s forthcoming book Making Institutional Repositories Work “takes novices as well as seasoned practitioners through the practical and conceptual steps necessary to develop a functioning institutional repository, customized to the needs and culture of the home institution.” And as the abstract of “A Continuum of Publishing Opportunities: The Purdue University Library Publishing Division” states, “Through the integration and collaboration of Purdue University Press and Scholarly Publishing Services, the Purdue University Libraries Publishing Division has become a leader in its capacity to produce high-quality publications serving a continuum of scholarly publishing needs across the University and beyond.” Congratulations, Dave!