A Michigan project team member will visit up to five model institutional repositories and conduct personal interviews with a wide range of classes of people associated with the repository: (a) current and potential contributors: research and teaching faculty, research scientists, graduate research assistants, lecturers, donors; (b) repository caretakers: librarians, archivists, historians, curators, system administrators, volunteers; (c) institutional officers and administrators: library directors, museum administrators, vice presidents for research; and (d) prospective users: students, faculty, scholars, research scientists, general public, web users.

This activity’s objective is to determine how model institutional repositories operate, serve users, and maintain themselves. Activity 3 can be subdivided into several subtasks: (1) identifying repository liaisons to host the visit of the project team staff member and arrange interviews and activities in advance, (2) making one-week visits to each repository, (3) establishing rapport, interviewing, probing, observing, collecting documentation, etc., at visited sites, (4) getting answers to follow-up questions via phone calls, email messages, and Internet chat, (5) comparing metadata assignment by different classes of people at different levels of professional expertise and experience in metadata assignment, and (6) assessing the usefulness of OCLC-supplied vocabulary tools.