Planning for a University of Guelph Institutional Repository: DSpace Implementation Helen Salmon & Ron MacKinnon Presentation to Information Services Committee May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Agenda  Institutional Repository  Introduction to DSpace  Easy to add/find content in DSpace  Building Online Communities  Q&A ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Institutional Repository… what is it?  An initiative sponsored and supported by the research library community: An institutional repository (IR) is a digital collection of a university’s intellectual output. Institutional repositories centralize, preserve, and make accessible the knowledge generated by academic institutions. IRs also form part of a larger global system of repositories, which are indexed in a standardized way, and searchable using one interface, providing the foundation for a new model of scholarly publishing. Canadian Association of Research Libraries ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Institutional Repository  An ecology  Institution-based  Scholarly & Teaching material in digital formats  Institutional memory and stewardship  Cumulative and perpetual  Open source and interoperable ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

 Synergy of sharing and making visible the intellectual effort of an institution  Potentially new publishing models  Provides faculty & University with long-term storage of research data, publications, teaching and learning repositories  … and More… ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG Institutional Repository

 Philosophy  Lots of digital material is already lost  Most digital material is at risk  Better to have it, do bit preservation than to lose it completely  Need to capture as much information as possible to support functional preservation  Cost/benefit tradeoffs ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG Digital Preservation

Communities  Departments, Labs, Research Centers, Programs, Schools, etc.  Localized policy decisions  Who can contribute, access material  Submission workflow  Submitters, approvers, reviewers, editors  Collections definition, management  Communities supply metadata & discipline expertise  Library supplies knowledge management expertise, guidance on Intellectual Property, metadata schema  CCS supplies campus network and mass storage backup, support for some delivery applications (e-learning, portal, video streaming) ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Possible Institutional Repository Content  Articles  Preprints, e-prints  Technical Reports  Working Papers  Conference Papers  E-theses  Audio/Video  Datasets  Statistical, geospatial  Images  Visual, scientific  Teaching material  Lecture notes, visualizations, simulations  Digitized library collections ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Why Libraries?  Expertise  Large-scale collection management  Assessment/collection policies  preservation  Metadata  Solid business practices  Commitment  Long time frames  Fits with Libraries’ mission and historical role in society and within universities ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Why the U of Guelph Library?  Support from Hewlett-Packard  Research intensivity at U of Guelph  Role of Strategic Plan of the University and the Library in emphasizing the use of technology to support learning and research  Community demand  It’s the “right time” Digital UG ISC: May 5, 2004

What is DSpace? A specialized type of digital asset management or content management system: it manages and distributes digital items, made up of digital files (or “bitstreams”) and allows for the creation, indexing, and searching of associated metadata to locate and retrieve the UG ISC: May 5, 2004

DSpace:  Infrastructure:  Open source software developed by MIT & H-P: it’s free!  Potential “LARGE” storage requirements  Java application, Unix environment  Built on top of open-source tools, such as:  the Apache Web server  Tomcat Servlet engine  postgreSQL relational database UG ISC: May 5, 2004

DSpace:  Open access philosophy  Inter operable with other software for specific applications (e.g. journal mgmt software, image database mgmt software)  Uses persistent identifiers, bitstream UG ISC: May 5, 2004

DSpace:  Captures  Digital research material in any formats  Directly from creators (faculty, libraries, others)  Large-scale, stable, managed long-term storage  Describes  Descriptive, technical, rights metadata  Persistent identifiers  Distributes  Via WWW, with necessary access control  Preserves  Bitstream UG ISC: May 5, 2004

Who’s Working with DSpace?  MIT (developed with HP)  Cambridge University  Columbia University  Cornell University  University of Toronto  University of British Columbia  Université de Laval  University of Washington … and many other UG ISC: May 5, 2004

Easy to Use  Easy to add content  Easy to browse and search content  Permanent identifier for your UG ISC: May 5, 2004

Submitting MIT ISC: May 5, 2004

@ MIT

ISC: May 5, UT

ISC: May 5, MIT

ISC: May 5, 2004

Guelph pilot projects  Pathology image collection (learning objects repository)  Critical Studies in Improvisation (ejournal)  Other UG published scholarly reports, journals, books, etc.  Digitized unique Library resources: photographs, audio recordings, manuscripts, diaries, etc. ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Principles  Open access, community-built rather than centrally controlled  Facilitates communities rather than controls information  Complements existing scholarly publishing models, doesn’t replace  Requires serious sustainable institutional commitment because it will create expectations, dependencies ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Issues:  IR infrastructure planning and implementation:  IT hardware, software, system  Human expertise: technical (sys admin); service coordination & management  Development / Governance  Marketing ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

Issues:  Choosing metadata (keywords, descriptions) that facilitates search and retrieval but isn’t overly labour-intensive  Choosing metadata appropriate to the community  Updating community’s content with new research or learning objects ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG

For more information… Go to: (MIT) (CARL)  FAQs  articles on DSpace  case studies, business plans  policies and standards for scholarly communication, digital preservation … ISC: May 5, 2004 Digital UG