University Libraries Premiere Cardinal Scholar Institutional Repository to Provide Global Access to Ball State Faculty and Student Work

Cardinal Scholar, Ball State University’s institutional repository, is now ready for business at www.bsu.edu/cardinalscholar. A project of the University Libraries, Cardinal Scholar serves as a means for faculty and students to make their intellectual and creative work globally accessible. The vision for Cardinal Scholar is to

· Promote open scholarly communication
· Preserve access to scholarly work produced at Ball State University
· Promote Ball State’s intellectual capital to a worldwide audience

By achieving this vision, Dr. Arthur W. Hafner, Dean of University Libraries, says that “Cardinal Scholar has the potential to be a key element in the University’s research and publication distribution strategy.”

Materials deposited in Cardinal Scholar are made available through the system’s interface, search engines like Google, and other indexing tools. This broad accessibility has been proven to increase the number of citations of such work.

Cardinal Scholar includes both published and unpublished articles, lectures and other presentations, reports, papers, and other research or scholarly work that faculty and students choose to make available. Supported formats range from text to video to maps to photographs of artwork and more.

Faculty and administrators can easily add annual reports, meeting minutes, and other documentation. Students can add their work and link it to their portfolios. Student works sponsored by faculty will be openly accessible to a worldwide audience to demonstrate the positive impact and contribution of the faculty’s teaching and guidance.

All members of the Ball State community are welcome and encouraged to add materials to Cardinal Scholar through the easy-to-use interface. Helpful pages like Getting Started, Guidelines, FAQs, and Help are available on the site. The site also includes specific information for administrators, faculty, students, and publishers. To begin using the system, go to the “Getting Started” page on the Web site. The University Libraries are pleased to offer assistance in using Cardinal Scholar.

For information, contact John B. Straw, Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections at JStraw@bsu.edu, or Philip J. Deloria, Archivist for Digital Projects and University Records, at PJDeloria@bsu.edu, or call 765-285-5078.