About ScholarWorks

ScholarWorks, a service of Lemieux Library, endeavors to act as a portal to the intellectual output of Seattle University. An online institutional repository, ScholarWorks provides free access to the materials within it, making them publicly available without restriction.

Who Can Contribute Content?

Seattle University faculty and staff, as well as Seattle University schools, college, departments, programs or other units, may contribute materials to ScholarWorks. ScholarWorks also welcomes content created by Seattle University students or by Seattle University student organizations, although student contributions must be supported by the sponsorship of a faculty or staff member.

What Materials Can Be Contributed?

ScholarWorks collects scholarly and creative work, as well as archival items and unique holdings of institutional value.

Current collection priorities include:

Scholarly and Creative Work of Seattle University Faculty and Staff

  • Pre- and post-publication scholarly literature
  • Conference presentations, papers and posters
  • White papers, technical reports and other unpublished academic work
  • Datasets of potential value to other scholars or practitioners
  • Artistic or literary works

Scholarly and Creative Work of Seattle University Students

  • Theses, dissertations, capstone and other culminating projects (faculty or staff sponsorship required)
  • Outstanding papers, presentations, or research or other academic projects (faculty or staff sponsorship required)

Archival Materials of Institutional Significance

  • Seattle University publications, including newspapers, yearbooks, journals, and other items published by the university or its colleges, schools or departments
  • Documents, records, photographs, scrapbooks, audio, visual or other materials that document the history of Seattle University

Lemieux Library Special Collections

  • Unique holdings of Lemieux Library, including rare books and manuscript collections

If you are interested in contributing materials not listed here, please contact scholarworks@seattleu.edu to discuss whether ScholarWorks can preserve and share your work.

What File Formats Are Accepted?

ScholarWorks accepts materials in any digital format, including text and document formats, images, datasets, audio, video, and computer code. There are no restrictions on file type, but only files containing machine-readable text will be full-text searchable through the ScholarWorks search function. Audio and video files are made available both for download and for streaming through a media player within the ScholarWorks site.

There is no formal limit on file size, but contributors are encouraged to consider limiting files to sizes that can be efficiently downloaded by users and to compress larger files.

Lemieux Library strongly encourages contributors to follow Seattle University best practices with regard to accessibility, so that content is available to all users. At minimum, contributions should meet the following standards: 1) Text in PDF documents is machine-readable (i.e. text has been recognized with optical character recognition); 2) Image file formats that do not permit character recognition are not used for text documents; 3) Video or audio files are accompanied by transcripts.

Retention of Materials

ScholarWorks is a permanent repository. When an item is deposited to ScholarWorks, a persistent URL is generated and a citation to the item will remain so long as the repository continues to exist.

However, repository administrators may remove materials from ScholarWorks in exceptional circumstances. Reasons for removal may include:

  • infringement of copyright or other intellectual property rights
  • privacy, confidentiality or libel concerns
  • plagiarism
  • violation of ScholarWorks policies
  • material outside the scope of ScholarWorks collection parameters

Items may be removed by initiative of repository administrators or in response to a removal request from an author, copyright holder, or third party. Removal requests, which must specify the reasons why an item should no longer be available through ScholarWorks, may be submitted to scholarworks@seattleu.edu. Repository administrators will notify contributors of the removal of their materials from ScholarWorks.

Preservation of Materials

ScholarWorks is hosted on the Bepress Digital Commons platform. Bepress stores all files in triplicate and creates daily repository backups that are stored in an off-site physical location and through a third-party cloud service. Bepress guarantees permanent web access to all files available in PDF format and will migrate or update PDF file formats to ensure compatibility with changing PDF reader technology. Although Bepress converts some text file formats to PDF format upon upload, it also retains a copy of every item uploaded to the repository in its original file format.

If Lemieux Library ceases its relationship with Bepress Digital Commons, Bepress will provide the library with copies of all repository files. If the library does not migrate ScholarWorks to a new platform, it will retain repository files and make them available to authors upon request.

Contributor License Agreement

Individuals contributing material to ScholarWorks will be asked to agree to the following terms:

I grant Seattle University permission to include the submitted material in the institutional repository known as ScholarWorks or in any successor to this repository at Seattle University. This non-exclusive, irrevocable license permits Seattle University’s Lemieux Library to make digital copies of the submission, distribute it in electronic form, and create or implement any adaptations that will allow the Library to collect, archive, promote or digitally preserve it. This agreement does not otherwise affect the submitted material’s copyright status, and copyright or other intellectual property rights associated with the material remain with the contributor or other current copyright owner.

I warrant that the submitted material is my original work and that I have the right to grant this license to Seattle University. I further warrant that the submitted material does not infringe any copyright or other proprietary rights, does not constitute defamation, invasion of privacy, or otherwise infringe the rights of any person or entity, and does not otherwise violate ScholarWorks’ policies.

By contributing to ScholarWorks, I agree that the submitted material will be publicly shared online and openly accessible. I waive any privacy rights granted by international, federal, state, or local law, policy, or regulation with respect to the submitted material, including, if I am a student, privacy rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), which protects educational records.

Terms of Use

Visitors to ScholarWorks may make personal, non-commercial use of repository materials. Unless permitted by the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107) or by a Creative Commons or other license, any other use of ScholarWorks materials requires permission of the copyright owner.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Seattle University’s ScholarWorks contains digitized materials that are derived from physical documents housed in the Lemieux Library’s Special Collections and are accessible to the public as part of the historical record. Some materials may contain offensive images, language, or other objectionable content. These materials will remain publicly available. These primary sources document a time and place in history and are a reminder of the continuous challenge of building a culture of equity and inclusion at Seattle University. These documents do not reflect a contemporary understanding of Seattle University’s mission and values, or our commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence.