What is the ESCAP Digital Repository?
Repositories are important tools for preserving an organization's legacy; they facilitate digital preservation and scholarly communication. The ESCAP Repository allows us to capture, store, index, preserve and redistribute - in digital form - the knowledge products of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The URL is: https://repository.unescap.org.
Objectives and Scope
- Provide a single point of access to more than 4,244 digital publications, from the first ESCAP publication in 1947, to the most recent. This number will continue to grow until all ESCAP research is made available. All publications are freely available in full-text.
- Support the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda by providing better access for member States to relevant knowledge and policy recommendations on the SDGs
- Increase the visibility and impact of ESCAP research, both regionally and globally.
- Ensure continuous and safe digital preservation of ESCAP’s intellectual property for the long term.
- Provide detailed usage statistics of ESCAP publications.
Type of information that the repository will store:
- Final versions of publications
- Public information
- Publications for which ESCAP has copyright
- Publications to be preserved as representative of the institutional memory
What about other kinds of documents?
Official documents: All ESCAP official documents prepared for intergovernmental processes and meetings are indexed and uploaded into the UN Official Document System (ODS). They are also currently being harvested by the UN Digital Library (UNDL).
Conferences, events and technical proceedings: The ESCAP website currently makes meeting documentation, including presentations, available from 2018 to the present. Over time, the ESCAP repository team will evaluate whether these and more historical ESCAP event proceedings should be migrated, preserved and shared via the institutional repository.
Technical details about the ESCAP Repository:
The ESCAP Repository is built on the open-access software DSpace, is interoperable with other repositories, and supports discoverability and re-usability of the content by complying with Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) standards. The repository uses a qualified Dublin Core metadata set which is a rich metadata that maps MARC21 metadata to Simple Dublin Core, and MODS metadata sets exposed through the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) protocol.
Owners and Stakeholders:
The ESCAP Digital Repository is a product developed and maintained by the ESCAP Library, located at the ESCAP headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand. Its ongoing development is made possible by collaboration with both internal and external partners. Other UN libraries implementing similar DSpace repositories meet regularly to share best practices and technical support. ESCAP colleagues in the Communications and Knowledge Management Section (CKMS), and the Information Management, Communications and Technology Section (IMCTS) offer maintenance support, ongoing feedback, and technical assistance. The repository is generously supported by member States in order to increase their technical capacity and progress towards meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda through better and more seamless access to ESCAP knowledge and publications.
Terms of use
The ESCAP Digital Repository is optimized for browsers: Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer from version 9 and higher.
The Digital Repository of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (the “Repository”) disseminates the intellectual heritage of ESCAP in accordance with the FAIR open-access principles. ESCAP allows users (“Users”) to visit the Repository and use the information, publications, documents and material (the “Material”) it contains pursuant to the following Terms of Use. By using the ESCAP Digital Repository, you are agreeing to the following Terms of use:
- INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND LICENSES
- USE OF THE MATERIAL FROM THE REPOSITORY
- LINKS TO THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES
- GENERAL
ESCAP owns the intellectual property rights in respect of all material from the Digital Repository.
The Material from the Repository can be accessed and downloaded freely. Users must always refer to the source in terms in keeping with the information available in the record.
The metadata of the Material is also available to the community in general. If your institution or Library wishes to “harvest” the metadata, it must contact the Repository Administrator at [email protected].
It is strictly forbidden to exploit the Material from the Repository for a commercial purpose.
ESCAP can add, change or update material from the repository without prior notice.
ESCAP requests that users only disseminate Material from its Repository by means of direct links to the material or to ESCAP Digital Repository, https://repository.unescap.org, instead of downloading it from third-party websites.
ESCAP has the exclusive right to modify, alter, limit or cancel the Repository or any material it contains. Requests in general may be addressed to [email protected].