It is common knowledge that we live in information age and that scientific papers and research are increasing. The introduction of the Internet has changed substantially the area of scientific information since most of information sources are changing their publication format to electronic making their content more usable and accessible. But another reality is that scientific information is not approachable by every possible user for economic reasons mainly. As far as academic libraries are concerned, it has been proven that even the wealthiest institution cannot provide to its users all the necessary information sources in order to cover all their research and scientific needs. The subscription cost for electronic and conventional information sources, like journal and databases, is high and is increasing rapidly. A solution, in order to avoid splitting scientific community is not divided into information rich and information poor, is the installation and usage of institutional repositories, i.e. digital collections where the intellectual output of a university will be gathered and preserved through the deposit of open access publishing that guaranties to the user free and unlimited access to their content with unique condition the access to the Internet. The purpose of this study is to present the current condition of open access scientific information and the function of institutional repositories in national and international level. Protocols, statements, decisions and proposals that have been published for the promotion and good usage of open access and institutional repositories are mentioned and examples and results of corresponding studies are imposed. Topics that have to do with the copyright, evaluation of the deposited papers and the necessary cost are discussed. Finally, there is a presentation of the available software for the installment of such a service and its functions.
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