Digital Libraries: Study into the features of the DSpace Suite Devika P. Madalli Documentation Research and Training Centre Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore

2 Introduction Digital libraries encompass a whole range of information services related work such as –Organization of digital information –Information retrieval –User interface –Archiving and preservation –Services and social issues –Evaluation and applications to particular areas

3 Desirable Features of DL Software Structures Accessible Searchable Extensible Massive Heterogeneous Persistent

4 DL’s operation should be examined under… Architectural design – Modular and Open Backend Database – scalable, robust, data formats Network capabilities – web-based and seamless operations, persistent Ids, security and authentication Metadata and Interoperability – compatible with world standards such as Dublin Core and OAI-PMH

5 Technical Issues Open source software Vs Commercial OS Hardware and peripheral requirements Network Components Standards – data formats, metadata, network, access, interoperability, encoding

6 Approaches to Building DL Digitization – retro-conversion of non-digital resources to digital Digitally born resources – involves inter- conversion to standard formats and storage

7 Why DSpace Digital Library An open source technology platform which can be customized and its capabilities can be extended A service model for open access and/or digital archiving for perpetual access A platform to build an Institutional Repository and the collections are searchable and retrievable by/on the Web To make available institution-based scholarly material in digital formats. The collection will be open and interoperable. DSpace is

8 Architecture and System Requirement The DSpace system is organized into three layers –The Storage Layer: responsible for physical storage of metadata and content –The Business Layer: deals with managing the content of the archive, users of the archive (e-people), authorization, and workflow –The Application Layer: containing components that communicate with the networked world outside of the individual DSpace installation, for example the Web user interface and the modules for metadata harvesting service

Features of a near ideal DL Low cost, including all hardware and software components Technically simple to install and manage Robust Scalable Open and inter-operable Modular User Friendly Multi-user (including both searching and maintenance) Multimedia digital object enabled Platform independent (including both client and server components) interoperable

DSpace is a joint project of MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard Labs

What is DSpace? Digital Object management system Create, search and retrieve digital objects Facilitate preservation of digital objects An open source software Allows open access and digital archiving Allows building Institutional Repositories

H/W and S/W requirements UNIX recommended (Java-based program should run on anything)‏ Open source, built on Apache web server and Tomcat Servlet engine Uses postgreSQL or Oracle relational database

What DSpace can do? Captures –Digital content in any formats directly from creators (e.g. researcher, authors)‏ Describes –Descriptive, technical, rights metadata –Persistent identifiers OAI-PMH version 2.0 compliant –Allow metadata creation

Possible types of Content Preprints, articles Postprints Technical Reports Conference Papers Theses/Dissertations Datasets –e.g. statistical, geospatial, scientific

Images –visual, scientific, etc. Audio files Video files Digitized library collections Formats of Content

File Formats Supported: Repository administrator can inform the submitters which file formats will be supported in the future by his organization Known: recognizes the format, but cannot guarantee full support Unsupported: cannot recognize a format; these will be listed as "application/octet- stream", -- Unknown

Information Model Communities –Departments, Labs, Research Centers, Schools… Collections Items Files (bitstreams)‏ –Multiple formats - same content –Complex objects – multiple files

Intellectual Property Click-through license during submission Grants DSpace non-exclusive right to acquire, manage, preserve, distribute the item Does not grant DSpace copyright Copy of license stored with item

Goodies Modular architecture, well-defined APIs 100% open source –Programmed in java –RDBMS and SQL for metadata CNRI “handles” for persistent identifiers OpenURL linking OAI-PMH for exposing metadata

Backend Technology Apache, Tomcat, OpenSSL/mod_ssl Java PostgreSQL/Oracle CNRI Handle System 5 (persistent ids)‏ Lucene Search Engine

Standards Dublin Core only –Descriptive metadata only OAI-PMH v 2.0 (Open Archive’s Initiative Protocol for metadata harvesting)‏ UNICODE Compliant

Capabilities Exports in XML format Supports crosswalks through OAI-PMH –DC (Dublin Core)‏ –Qualified DC –METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard –MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema – sibling of MARCXML)‏ Can be extended to any Metadata Schema

Customization Screens (Manakin)‏ s Any language interface Metadata Input-forms Display of results Fields to be Indexed Access restrictions License (in addition to Creative Commons)‏

Advanced Feature Grid Compliant (Storage)‏ LDAP authentication Usage statistics generation SFX Server integration RSS (Really Simple Syndication)‏ Item Recommendation to a friend Use of Thesaurus (though not OWL/SKOS/RDF)‏ Full-text indexing of PDF, MS-WORD files

Important Sites general devel

DRTC Sites (Librarians' Digital Library)‏ (Discussion Forum)‏ (Harvester in LIS)‏

Questions?

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