About Libra

Libra is the University of Virginia’s scholarly institutional repository, the online archive of scholarship created by the University community.  Libra makes UVA scholarship available to the world. It provides a central, stable location for the scholarly output of the University community, which includes journal articles, datasets, theses, and other completed scholarly works eligible to be preserved and accessed by the public.

Libra is an open access repository, meaning that anyone can search, view and download most Libra content either immediately or following an embargo period specified by the depositor. Some works in Libra have been deposited with a UVA Only Deposit License, so are available in full text only to students, faculty, staff, and walk-in users of the UVA Library. Users are subject to the Libra site Terms of Use.

Authors who deposit their works with Libra may choose to use a variety of Creative Commons licenses to permit broad re-use of their works, or they may reserve their copyrights and make their work available under default legal rules. In any case, as with all copyrighted works, users are always free to make fair uses and other lawful uses of works downloaded from Libra.

Libra has three parts: LibraETD, LibraData (a local Dataverse repository), and LibraOpen.

Benefits of submitting your work to Libra

By submitting your work to Libra, you make your scholarship discoverable and downloadable by other scholars worldwide. Other benefits include:

  • Preservation of your work in Libra as part of the record of UVA scholarship.
  • Optional ORCID iD linking to connect your scholarship to you via persistent digital identifier, in addition to your name.
  • Persistent URL via Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration provides a simple, durable link to include in your CV, on your personal web site, and other places where you share your scholarship.
  • LibraOpen and LibraData are repository options for complying with funder requirements to make taxpayer-funded research immediately available for the public to freely access and fully use. See the Nelson Memo  on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research.

The UVA Library and Information Technology Services are committed to the durability and sustainability of scholarship deposited in Libra.  Libra uses standard data management practices, including security and backup procedures, to provide a reasonable assurance that files will remain retrievable over time. In addition, UVA Library is a founder and participant in the Academic Preservation Trust consortium, which aims to ensure preservation of digital library content including Libra files.

The Libra Collections Policy (PDF) describes the types of works accepted to Libra.

Deposit licenses

In order to deliver written works and other copyrighted materials to the public, Libra must have consent from the copyright holder. The Deposit Licenses ask you, the author, to confirm that you are the copyright holder and that you have obtained necessary permissions for third-party material included in the work.  In addition, if portions of your work were previously published, the agreement confirms that you have retained the rights to place this material online for viewing by the University community and/or the public. The agreement does not ask you to transfer your copyright to the University, or to give up any rights you have regarding the material to the University. There are four deposit licenses, specific to the type of deposit:

  1. Libra Public Deposit License: Confirms that you wish to make products of your scholarship available through Libra to the public, to allow certain educational, non-commercial, public uses of the material, and to allow for preservation by the University. It is a limited-non-exclusive agreement, meaning you retain all the rights you had before the item was deposited.
  2. Libra Deposit License for Student Theses and Dissertations: Confirms that you grant to UVA the non-exclusive right to preserve, reproduce and/or distribute your thesis or dissertation (including the metadata and abstract) worldwide, in any format or medium for non-commercial, research, educational, or related academic purposes, subject to any temporary embargo or access restrictions you have selected through the deposit process.
  3. Libra Dataset Public Deposit License: Confirms that you wish to make the material available through Libra to the public, to allow certain educational, non-commercial, public uses of the material, and to allow for preservation by the University. It is a limited, non-exclusive agreement, meaning you retain all the rights you had before the item was deposited. It also affirms that you have the legal right and authorization to make the data public, you have removed any confidential or sensitive information required by law or UVA policy and you have fulfilled any right of review, confidentiality, or other obligations imposed by research agreements.
  4. Libra UVA-Only Deposit License: Confirms that you wish to make products of your scholarship available through Libra only to students, faculty, staff, and walk-in users of the UVA libraries, in any format or medium for non-commercial, research, educational, or related academic purposes only. You also authorize UVA to allow UVA community users of the repository to distribute your submission (including the metadata and abstract) in any format or medium for UVA internal non-commercial, research, educational, or related academic purposes only.  Your deposit will not be accessible to colleagues or students at other universities.

Libra policies