This article is reposted from Library Journal, with permission. 

Academic libraries do something remarkably well: They take information published in a variety of formats worldwide and make it easily searchable and accessible for students, faculty, and researchers. Now, a growing number of institutional leaders are asking: How can academic librarians take these same skill sets and apply them to the challenge of making a university’s research assets more easily discoverable among the broader research community?

Many research universities use institutional repositories to collect, store, and highlight their research assets, including published papers, data sets, and other outputs. Often managed by the library, these repositories disseminate the work of students and scholars to the academic community at large, making it easier for other researchers to find, use, and build on that knowledge. They also help universities comply with open-access rules requiring publicly funded research to be made widely available.