Someone Stop Me!

I had a meeting with some representatives from other Schools last week - they wanted to deposit some Masters theses in a repository but they were hindered from doing so by the policies of the respective services. The long and short of it was that I volunteered to set up a demo repository to allow them to get their documents housed somewhere safe, but also because I know that we need somewhere to store four years of our school's masters and undergraduate dissertations. We'll use the demo to make a business case to the university to extend the "institutional repository umbrella" while we're getting some experience with the issues.

Anyway, I set up the repository over the weekend and deposited the first batch of 100 dissertations, and - this is my point - it just feels so GOOD to be in control. I don't know if other repository managers get that feeling too, but when you get to make all the metadata decisions and press all the import buttons and BANG you've got a new batch of stuff all sitting pretty then I get a warm glow. Is this wrong? It's the same feeling as home baking, except that the cakes disappear by the morning whereas the dissertation are still there!

It's certainly more satisfying than setting exams, which is what I was supposed to be doing.