A. Purpose :- The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experiences obtained in developing a proposed model of institutional repository at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh and suggestions derived to overcome the challenges. B. Design/methodology/approach :- The basis of this paper is a case study that gives the detailed account of the development of Knowledge Repository, an Institutional Repository of Aligarh Muslim University that includes software installation, customization, workflow in the repository, etc. C. Findings :- Before adopting the set procedure of designing a Model IR for the Faculty of Life Sciences, the study thoroughly covered the concept and the emergence of Open Access Repositories with a specific study of Open Access Repositories available in several universities in India so far. A comparative study of the available Open Source Software packages was also made before selecting DSpace Open Source Software for creating a model IR for the Faculty of Life Sciences, AMU, Aligarh. Finally the Model IR was tested by putting it into use by the target users who not only liked the organization of elements on the home page of the Model IR but also the Browsing & Searching options, particularly the process of updating through Emails and Self Archiving/Deposition of contents. Research limitations/implications – The development of an Institutional Repository for the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh is in its test phase, and, at this moment, only a model Repository by taking the Faculty of Life Sciences as a base has been created. D. Practical implications :- The Knowledge Repository of Aligarh Muslim University, would be extremely useful for the Institution in general and research community in particular. The proposed IR of AMU should serve as a one stop source for the preservation and dissemination of institutional productivity. F. Originality/value :- Originality of this software architecture lies in the usage of OAI-PMH. Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a transmission standard for Digital Libraries/Institutional Repositories. As the protocol provides an interoperability framework based on the harvesting of metadata from different repositories, all Open Source Software packages are supposed to be OAI-PMH compliant, a feature that allows the Institutional Repositories/Digital Libraries to provide indexing, search and content description services to their users.

Keywords : Institutional Repositories, Aligarh Muslim University, OAI-PMH, Open Source Software, Dspace Software, Digitization, Self Archiving, Content, OAIS