Creative management in challenging times: the development of Lenus, an open access health repository.

The focus of this report is the current management issues for the HSE Libraries’ online Open Access (OA) repository, Lenus. The report provides information on the background and history of the Lenus project, including a discussion of the rise of OA repositories. A contextual analysis follows, outlining a number of internal and external influences that have shaped the management practices. Finally there is a discussion of the key challenges and opportunities involved in providing such a service for healthcare practitioners and researchers. Open Access is still a relatively new concept, and Lenus is particularly innovative in that it is essentially a multi-institutional OA repository. This distinguishes it from the single institutional repositories of many universities, and highlights Lenus’ emphasis on providing a nationwide service that is accessible to all, thereby supporting evidence-based practice in Irish healthcare. The timeliness and importance of operating such a service is highlighted by the fact that a recent Open Access Mandate was launched in Ireland, stating that all publicly or partially-publicly funded research must be made accessible through an OA source. Because the case study examines an ongoing process, qualitative research methods were employed in order to provide for the most detailed analysis possible. In addition to conducting a literature review, a lengthy interview was carried out with the Lenus manager, Aoife Lawton, before surveys were emailed to all six members of the Lenus team to gauge their level of involvement and their own views of the current and future challenges for the repository. A number of issues became clear, in particular the challenges involved for time management. Based on the findings, a number of recommendations can be made: The working group should be expanded so that more researchers can be made aware of and encouraged to upload their publications and articles directly to the repository. This will ensure that the Lenus team can spend less time harvesting content and more time cataloguing and editing.   A more aggressive marketing strategy should be developed to promote research contributions to this repository in the future. This might involve dissemination of leaflets and brochures to hospitals and community-based healthcare organisations and more presentations by LIS staff at relevant conferences. The move by Dr. Barry White, National Director, Clinical Strategy and Programmes, to send a letter to hospitals to raise awareness of Lenus was a strategic success and should be expanded.   The challenge of partnering with other Irish health-related repositories and university research repositories must also be addressed to expand the scope and availability of material.   A strategic steering committee or advisory group should be established within the HSE to ensure that the future of Lenus is developed along the lines of best practice with regard to both OA and evidence-based healthcare.