Developing a National Information Strategy in Scotland

Developing and implementing a national information strategy has been of key interest to Scotland's political and LIS fraternity alike. This paper describes the components necessary to bring such a national information strategy to fruition and the role institutional repositories are to play in such a strategy. The use of institutional repositories - as a means of opening access to Scottish research output - supports a number of key political, social and economic factors intrinsic to the Scottish scene. Institutional repositories can underpin the work of HE institutions by providing a readable means of data management and promotion of research outputs. Yet, these benefits can only be reaped if librarians are placed at the epicentre of this vision; their unique skills and knowledge informing the implementation and ongoing management of globally interoperable repositories. The emergence of a distributed national repository infrastructure in Scotland is also explored, as is the overarching role intended for the new IRIScotland project.