Challenges in Reinvigorating and Upgrading DSpace-based Institutional Repositories: A University of Zambia (UNZA) Library Case Study

The University of Zambia established an institutional repository (IR) in order to archive and make available to the research community the university’s intellectual output using DSpace. This paper describes the rationale behind the implementation of an IR, the equipment and software used digitise the materials. It further explains the steps taken and also challenges faced in installing the software and the process taken to upgrade it from version 1.6 to version 5.5. The latest stable version as on 9 January 2017 is DSpace 6, however we believe that the instructions contained in this paper will be applicable to this version of DSpace. As of January 2017, there were over 4,000 research materials archived in the University of Zambia IR which are now discoverable, searchable and accessible on the internet.