ULM’s role in scientific research activity of UM

Through its activities, the University Library Maribor is supporting the scientific research activity of the University of Maribor which is undergoing major changes due to the transition of scientific communication into virtual environment and the new paradigm of open science. In addition to its traditional tasks, it provides the necessary online infrastructure for scientific research and creates the basis for generating new knowledge, keeping its record and ensuring its dissemination with information systems and their intertwinement. Effective support is based on the effective care of research infrastructure, of its maintenance, functional upgrade and providing assistance to users of the institutional repository of the Digital Library of the University of Maribor (DKUM: https://dk.um.si) and the Digital repository of ULM (DR UKM: https://dr.ukm.um.si/), which are connected to other information systems – Open Science Slovenia (http://www.openscience.si/), COBISS.SI (https://www.cobiss.si/), SICRIS (https://www.sicris.si/) and the emerging portal of the Slovene Open Science Community (https://odprtaznanost.si/), which is the future national research infrastructure for implementing principles and activities of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC – https://eosc-portal.eu/).

The repositories are scientific collections in electronic form. They offer documents to be handled scientifically within the academic community and wider. For the University of Maribor, in the field of open science, DKUM is also the key infrastructure within the emerging Research and Innovation Strategy of Slovenia for the period 2021–2030 (RISS 2021–2030). It provides researchers of the University of Maribor with an environment for meeting the requirements of the European Commission to ensure open access publications of scientific works and research data. The digital repository of ULM as an environment for storage and publication of digitised analogue sources from the rich ULM stock is for UKM and the University of Maribor an opportunity for developing civic science and an even greater integration into the local environment.

Digital Library of the University of Maribor (DKUM)

DKUM is the institutional repository of the University of Maribor that provides researchers of the University of Maribor with an environment for meeting the requirements of the European Commission to ensure open access publications of scientific works and research data. It is OpenAIRE (https://www.openaire.eu/) compatible and therefore meeting all requirements of the European Commission. One of the key novelties in the Horizon Europe EC programme is strengthening the openness. Therefore, the implementation of the European Open Access Policy is of utmost importance. In order for the researchers to achieve better dissemination and exploitation of results regarding research and innovations, the Horizon Europe programme prescribes four basic orientations: mandatory open access to publications, ensuring open access to research data, supporting knowledge, researchers’ skills and reward systems for open science as well as using the European open science cloud. DKUM is a key research infrastructure that enables UM researchers to satisfy the requirements by funders of research co-funded from public funds. Deposited scientific articles and research data sets are aggregated on the national portal of open science and permanently stored in the Archives of the National and University Library Ljubljana. According to the tripartite agreement on the maintenance and necessary upgrades of the ULM Digital Library of the University of Maribor, the UM Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (UM FERI) and the Computer Centre of the University of Maribor are responsible for the maintenance and development of DKUM.

Digital Repository ULM (DR ULM)

As the central library of the University of Maribor, the second depository (archive) library of the Republic of Slovenia and local history library, ULM stores in its stocks an outstanding collection of old and valuable material. ULM is aware of the necessity of building digital collections, since it is important for the development of science and research, for education and professional work in all areas and within all activities that documents, research achievements and written cultural heritage of local and national importance are accessible in electronic form from anywhere and any time. DR ULM is a repository for reviewing digitised material from the ULM stock with the emphasis on open access to the valuable written cultural heritage that is kept and recently intensively digitised by ULM. It can be accessed by the public in digitised form in the Digital Repository of UKM (https://dr.ukm.um.si/). By upgrading the functionality, DR ULM will be the key infrastructure for civic science development. Digital objects and the entire repository are permanently stored in the NUK Archives.

Key objectives

• organising knowledge of UM researchers in open access;
• digitising analogue sources for scientific handling;
• upgrading support to UM researchers in the context of applying open access principles, especially managing research data;
• sustainable development of research infrastructures – DKUM and DR ULM.