MOspace is the digital institutional repository of the University of Missouri System, and is a joint initiative of the University Libraries, the Office of Library Systems, and the Division of Information Technology. It is a permanent digital storehouse of research and knowledge, focusing on works created by those connected with the University of Missouri. MOspace is place where faculty, staff and students can store their intellectual output, and depend upon a permanent URL.
MOspace allows the library to preserve and provide open access to items in a more permanent way than posting to a website. The project uses DSpace, an open source application developed at MIT, which provides permanent URLs for documents deposited through it to the MOspace server. The Libraries are committed to this ongoing effort as part of the next generation of library collections.
MOspace, in addition to acting as a preservation tool, is our part of the international open access movement. You have probably heard of the recent votes in favor of open access by Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Stanford's School of Education, and other institutions and faculties. MOspace could even be a home for a new open access journal in the future.
An important part of the MOspace effort is encouraging authors not to sign away rights to their own works, as often happens when they publish in commercial journals. Retaining the copyright allows content to be made available to students and scholars without huge subscription fees. In MOspace, the author/creator retains copyright in all cases, so an author could also publish an item elsewhere, providing that the publisher allows (see this author's addendum for an example addendum to a publisher's contract). For items not commercially published, author permission is all that is needed to allow the Library to add it to MOspace. Library staff can download items from websites or upload items directly via author submission. Authors can submit works directly to mospace@missouri.edu; most electronic formats are accepted for submission.
Establishing MOspace is part of the crucial role libraries play in preserving research and scholarship in all forms and making knowledge accessible for future scholars.
For more information, consult our help page, call 573-882-1685, or email mospace@missouri.edu.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.
