ISSUES IN KSU FACULTY PUBLICATION ARCHIVING AND ACCESS
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Authors:
• Reima Al Jarf, email: unknown, Afiliation: King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -
Keywords: ksu repozitory, metadata, access, searching options, digital documents, digital archives
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Abstract:
The present study examines the King Saud University Repository (KSUR) and explores how documents are collected, classified, curated and preserved, and how the digital content is accessed. Although the repository has a total of 48789 file URL’s, the proportion of faculty’s full-text publications contained in the repository is very small. Faculty publications are stored in folders and subfolders, which are given serial numbers, not fields and subfields. Documents in the KSUR cannot be accessed through the university library website and no link to a special website with a main page, simple and advanced searching tools and multiple keyword narrowing options is available. Faculty publications can be only accessed through Google or Google Scholar by using an author’s name as a search term. The Arabic document content is unreadable and 70% of an abstract is simply deleted. When articles uploaded by the faculty in PDF format are located in Google or Google Scholar, they appear in WORD not PDF format. Use of faculty publications is not protected by copyright law. Detailed results are reported and recommendations for storing, retrieving, and accessing the KSUR are given.