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The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the initial transformation of one academic library's digital media library into the institutional repository (IR) of its entire academic organization.

Provides a description of an academic digital library's evolution into an institutional repository, accompanied by both practical and philosophical analyses.

Materials supporting an academic institution's scholarship (from colleges and from supporting organizations on campus) can play an important part in the success of an institutional repository. Standards for metadata content, data structures and hierarchies of collections must be followed consistently, and adequate storage for digital media within an institutional repository is necessary to have in advance of anticipated demand for the smooth operation of the IR and continued access to materials. Gray areas between the role of an institutional repository and the role of that organization's archives need to be addressed in the future.

Academic libraries can be highly successful in producing an institute repository by developing relationships with various organizations on campus in addition to the academic programs. Maintaining standards throughout the IR is crucial to future growth in an organized and consistent manner. Philosophical considerations of the role of the IR should be addressed in the beginning stages of the development of the IR for eliminating confusion and duplication of its contents with other campus organizations.

This paper describes the development of a digital library, created and maintained by an academic library, and its gradual change into a de facto institutional repository. Other libraries in the planning stages or initial steps of creating a campus‐wide digital library or an institutional repository can benefit from the description of possible successes and problems that they could encounter during implementation.

The paper's purpose is to share the insights that the staff of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Libraries (Wallace Library, RIT Archives, and the Cary Collection) gained into the role of reference librarians in establishing and operating an institutional repository (IR).

The paper conducts a literature review on a range of published (1999‐2005) works to research the background of IRs and to incorporate it with the authors' own experiences.

The research findings, involving implementing IRs and specifically the effect on the role of the reference librarian in academic libraries, were found to be not as extensive as expected.

This paper is intended for those who are involved in developing and promoting IRs. The outcome of the paper is to stimulate thought and to contribute to the dialog on the topic of how IRs impact reference librarian roles and careers.