Enhancing Academic Visibility of Faculty Members in Nigerian University Community: The Role of Institutional Repositories

This paper focused on the role of institutional repositories in enhancing the academic visibility of faculty members in Nigerian university community. It began with a brief clarification of the concept of Institutional Repository (IR) before delving into its origin, spread, contents and mode of population of contents. This smoothened the ground for a detailed analysis of the role which IRs can play as enablers of information provision in Nigerian universities. Subsequently, attention was drawn to the potentials of IRs as avenues through which tertiary institutions of learning can increase access to, and visibility of, the academic outputs of their scholars and researchers. Notwithstanding the challenges to the optimal performance of the few repositories available in Nigerian universities, the paper posits that the prospects and fortunes of these IRs would change for the better with sustained efforts and commitment of various stakeholders. It is on the basis of this conclusion that several recommendations were made, including sustained awareness and advocacy, adequate funding of universities in Nigeria and their libraries, provision of better training opportunities for librarians to improve their IT competency, as well as increase in the rate of population of content deposition.