About the LaIR

The Langara Institutional Repository (The LaIR) captures unique digital output from Langara's students, faculty, staff, and community. Institutional repositories (like the LaIR) provide students and faculty with a digital space to store and share scholarly production, projects, learning objects, art, and any number of digitized or digitally born resources. These spaces are designed to be open access, allowing content to be shared in a way that enhances academic discourse and resource dissemination. 

Launched in 2017, The LaIR was made possible thanks to a generous and vital donation to the Langara Foundation.

For questions about The Langara Institutional Repository, please contact Ryan Vernon, Librarian.

 

About ARCA

The LaIR is a member of Arca, a collaborative initiative that puts the development and implementation of a digital repository within reach for every organisation, at a reasonable cost, and in a supported environment.

Arca exists to create opportunities to share digital scholarship and heritage, and to build communities in British Columbia and beyond; for access, discovery, and knowledge creation, with cost-effective, shared infrastructure.

Through centralised coordination and a collaborative approach, Arca:

  • Ensures organisations can offer a high-quality, responsive digital repository service at an affordable cost.
  • Maximises system efficiencies through centralised licensing, expertise, best practices, and support.
  • Builds a community of practice that extends expertise, nurtures innovation and cultivates collaboration.
  • Facilitates search across digital assets from all participating organisations.
  • Seeks opportunities to strengthen and build new partnerships.

Arca is built on Islandora, a Canadian-developed open-source platform currently in use at over 100 public and private institutions worldwide. This shared platform provides organisations with open-access repositories for research, theses, and any other digital assets they wish to make available to the wider community.

Arca is made possible by a partnership between the BC Electronic Library Network (BC ELN) and Charlottetown, PEI-based software firm discoverygarden. Implementation was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills.

For more information about Arca, including project timelines, announcements, annual reports, etc. please visit the BC ELN website.

Questions? Contact the Arca Administrative Centre.