Institutional repositories have become widely used technologies to curate research data, scholarly publications, organizational records, and cultural heritage materials, but they need an engagement framework for institutional support, sustainability, and assessment. The institutional repository engagement framework becomes a link between an academic library's IR program and strategic goals of the department and parent institution. This article takes an exploratory approach to present the institutional repository engagement framework as an analytical framework for assessments. Characteristics of the IR, knowledge management, and institutional frameworks provide a framework for the study, demonstrating the interrelatedness of these elements in the engagement framework.