There is much speculation that the development of institutional repositories will impact on or even change the traditional scholarly communication process. The purpose of this conversation is to introduce the reader to the use of and response to institutional repositories which were initiated by the Open Access Initiative. The concept of institutional repositories will be described, as well as their advantages and uses in institutions, specifically a personalised academic collection (the Jonathan Jansen Collection) which was developed on UPSpace, the institutional repository of the University of Pretoria, South Africa.