COAR Members-Only Webinar: “Driving Traffic to Institutional Repositories: How Search Engine Optimisation can Increase the Number of Downloads from IR” by Kenning Arlitsch, Dean of the Library at Montana State University.
Date: September 18th, Monday at 16:00 CEST / 08:00 MDT.
Webinar recording and the slides are available here.
The success of institutional repositories (IR) is measured in large part by the number of file downloads they sustain. Most traffic to IR is referred by Internet search engines, but referrals are hindered when IR are not properly optimized for search engine harvesting and indexing, leading to low visitation and downloads. This presentation will discuss search engine optimization techniques, especially for Google Scholar, which can be responsible for the majority of referrals that result in IR file downloads. The presentation will also introduce a new web service called RAMP (Repository Analytics & Metrics Portal) that accurately counts file downloads from IR and requires no installation or training.
About the speaker
Kenning Arlitsch is Dean of the Library at Montana State University, where he leads a research library actively engaged in student success, statewide collaboration and the university’s research enterprise. In his 24-yea career as a professional librarian, he has held positions in library instruction, digital library development, and IT services. His funded research has focused on search engine optimisation, as well as measuring impact and use of digital repositories. He writes a regular column in the Journal of Library Administration and serves on the editorial board of Library Hi Tech. Arlitsch holds a MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Ph.D. in library and information science from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. His dissertation on Semantic Web Identity examined how well research libraries and other academic organisations are understood by search engines.