Thoughts on Monica Westin's 2021 presentation on Google Indexing

[Pranav Vichare]

Dear colleagues, 

The University of Oklahoma Libraries is trying to automate the  cover pages for faculty submissions to the DSpace Institutional repository SHAREOK. The Lyrasis DSpace document (inbuilt DSpace Cover page) advises that the cover page may affect Google indexing, and Monica Westin's recent 2021 presentation suggests that "Cover page may affect Indexing repository coverage."
Any feedback or thoughts are welcome that will help us get more clarity on Google indexing workflow.

Thank you.

Regards,

Pranav Vichare

University of Oklahoma Libraries

[Reed, Marianne A.]

Hi, Pranav!  It’s also my understanding that having a cover page can affect indexing by Google.  Since indexing by Google is something that our faculty very much want for those materials that they have decided to share in KU ScholarWorks, we stopped doing cover pages years ago.   

 

Would you mind sharing the motivation behind adding cover pages to your repository materials?  Is it to make sure that readers know the source of the material?  Institutional branding?   Providing a copyright statement? 

 

Depending on the Libraries’ motivation for doing cover pages, others in the group may be able to suggest other ways to accomplish the same thing.

 

Best regards

Marianne Reed

 

 

Marianne Reed (she/her/hers)

Digital Publishing and Repository Manager

Watson Library, Room 470-G

University of Kansas Libraries

mr...@ku.edu

785-864-8913

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[Pranav Vichare]

Hi Marianne,

Thank you for your response!We have a few different reasons for considering cover pages:

1. We know that most users will find a full-text PDF (as opposed to the institutional repository record) via a search engine, and we want to make sure they are still presented with information regarding the final (published) version as well as the permalink associated with the repository record. We consider this especially important for pre-prints and post-prints and for those readers who do not have access to the final (published) version.
2. We have also found that more publishers are requiring a set policy statement directly on the PDF, and we would prefer to incorporate that into a standardized cover page. 
3. We also appreciate how Harvard (example) and other institutions have linked to a feedback form on their repository cover pages and would like to implement something similar as a means of gathering feedback to help demonstrate the value of the repository.

I have reached out to three other DSpace users that have implemented cover pages, and so far, two have gotten back to me and confirmed that the cover pages have not affected their Google Scholar indexing. I’m reaching out to this group in the hope of determining whether any institutions have encountered indexing issues recently.

Best Regards,

Pranav Vichare

University of Oklahoma Libraries