 Hello, my name is Allison Crawford, I'm the Access Services Librarian at Swisher Library at Jacksonville University. This poster presentation is titled Connecting Students to Jacksonville University's Institutional Repository. The Institutional Repository is housed within the Jacksonville University Library. I am in charge of uploading the thesis and dissertation as they are sent to the library, per se. In 2018, I was charged with investigating what platforms would be suitable for our institutional repository that we wanted to begin. So I decided to look into other universities that were similar to Jacksonville University as well as other institutional repository platforms. So I looked at institutions that were our size, but then I also looked at other institutions so I could see what other platforms looked like at other universities. So I could see how they worked on different websites other than a promotional viewpoint. We also had a trial period of different platforms throughout the time prior to my being employed at Jacksonville University. So I had previous information that I was able to look over but not direct experience with those platforms. So I also communicated with other universities as well who were able to give me their input on certain aspects. I looked at BPRS. I looked at ProQuest. I looked at DSPACE. I looked at Content DM as well as a few others. We personally at Jacksonville University had had a trial period with Content DM. We were able to upload a few thesis that we had had in our possession as well as experimented with our archives in seeing how that would look on our library website, although we had nothing front facing to the public so it was just on the back end so we could experiment with how it would run and how we could upload and how it would look. In the end I determined that Content DM would work for our needs with our size of our community that was sending in thesis and dissertation. We have some departments that are sending in thesis and they are very small departments at that, mostly nursing so they send in their DNPs. They send in them throughout the year so that is an ongoing process. The marine science, they mostly send in at the end of the semester, mostly at the end of spring term which would be around May and they trickle in maybe at the end of fall term but mostly at spring. And then we have a few departments that are still bringing in physical thesis. So it is my challenge to bring those who are still sending in physical to transition them into the electronic but as you can see to the graph to the right we were pretty steady in the low numbers up until the letter part of 2021 and that was mostly because it was trying to get the word out. But then also once we got our contract signed with Content DM the pandemic hit and so I was not able to really get the word out as I would have liked. So I was just sending out emails and having to talk individually with people and of course the pandemic just kind of put a wrench into a lot of things but the latter part of 2021 really kind of gave us a boost and it's gotten steadily better since then and so I expect our numbers to grow even more and that's very nice to know. The numbers are even better since I created this poster. We are now up to at least about 77 on our repository and so that is good news. I have also created a research guide that you see below the graph that gives students and faculty information as to how to upload the thesis. There's a submission form that they would complete as well as a way to upload that thesis. I also have an email address that is not my direct email although they do know that it's me they are emailing so that if they have any questions they can email through Insta or excuse me repository at ju.edu to ask me questions. Also they could attach their thesis in case their upload didn't work sometimes they are rather large and sometimes the uploading doesn't quite pan out like it like planned. Also on the research guide I have the handbooks to the various departments with that includes the requirements for the thesis so that way the students have kind of a one-stop shop to what's required and I do try to update those every couple of years or as I know that there are updates to those handbooks and also of course the citation guides that we create at the library as well so just some little helpful guides to help them along with their thesis. And that in a nutshell is how I have started the institutional repository and I hope to see you all around at the conference and thank you all for showing up virtually if you are viewing this virtually you can see my contact information down at the bottom of this poster and I welcome your emails and questions if you have any and thank you very much.