Responding to the Reality: Emerging Roles of Open Access Institutional Repositories and their Challenges in the Technical Universities of Ghana

This paper discussed open access (OA) as an academic journal that is accessible online to readers without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet. The paper has also identified that in recent times where libraries are struggling to get e-resources to support teaching, learning, and research, harvesting the institutions’ artifacts and research work has become the ‘saviour’ that Technical Universities in Ghana must embrace. In addition, the paper discusses the benefits of institutional repositories, as well as the challenges institutions such as Technical Universities face in the use of these resources in Ghana. The paper further suggests some steps academic libraries in Ghana could adopt in building effective institutional repositories.