A call went out recently for comments on the comparative evaluation of 4 IR software packages - DSpace, ePrints, Fedora and Zentity.

The project blog at http://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/rep/ gives more information …

The analysis includes both qualitative and quantitative measures taken from default installations of the repositories on a benchmark machine with a predefined base collection. The repository software will also be evaluated on the execution of four common workflows: consume, submit, accept, and batch.

Our aim is to produce a holistic evaluation that will describe the four repository software packages in a comparative manner, similar in approach to Consumer Reports. The output of this study will be useful for repository developers, repository managers, and especially those who are selecting a repository for the first time. As members of these respective communities and the organizations who support them are increasingly collaborating (e.g, DuraSpace), this study will help identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of each solution to inform the “best-of-breed” in future solutions that may be developed.

We solicited and received input from the principals of each repository project. The purpose of this blog is to request comments from the DSpace, Fedora, e-Prints, and Zentity developer and user communities to help us refine our evaluative criteria and appropriate measures and methods. Comments can be left at  http://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/rep/2010/02/25/a-comparative-analysis-of-institutional-repository-software

The IFLA International Newspaper Conference recently took place in Delhi, India, from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th February 2010. The Conference attracted a wide variety of participants locally from India and internationally. The National Libraries of France, Finland, Australia, Singapore and India were represented as well as the Royal Library of Sweden. The British Library and the Library of Congress Newspaper sections were also represented. DISA was invited to present a paper on the state of newspaper digitisation in South Africa.

Lighting the lamp                                           Frederick Zarndt talking about born digital newspapers

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Last week I attended a pre-proposal workshop, hosted by Digital Innovations South Africa (DISA) and the South Africa Netherlands research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD). The purpose of the workshop was to develop a proposal for a three-year long project looking at digital archives and heritage in South Africa. Participants came from the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).  The first day consisted of presentations with the second day dedicated to formulating a research question.

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DISA kicked off the year with a training programme that was attended by two interns from the National University of Lesotho. They are currently involved in setting up an institutional repository and came out to SA to acquire the hands-on training. It was an intensive two-week  programme. The DISA staff designed individual training modules for the various processes involved in setting up a digital library/archive. The interns were advised on the necessary hardware and software requirements. Extensive hands-on training was offered on file management, file naming conventions, the digitization process, the post processing of the scans, the creation of metadata for each document/item using Dublin Core as well Greenstone models, workflow processes, database management, quality control and digital rights management. Much of the first week of training focused on digitization and the interns were given the opportunity to digitize different types of media. In the second week, preservation and storage of digital objects was covered and finally the creation of a website from which to serve the digital archive. 

The two interns were instructed on how to write their own guidelines which they took home with them to guide their own process of training others at the University library. At the end of the two-week period the interns felt a little overwhelmed but also well informed on the processes involved and the ins and outs of setting up a digital repository.

Internships serve a vital function between training and implementation. Overall it was a valuable learning experience for the trainees as well as the host and based on the positive outcomes, DISA is planning to host more internships in the future.

For more information send an e-mail to disa@ukzn.ac.za

The theme of the Open Repositories 2010 Conference is “The Grand Integration Challenge”. A call for Papers, Posters

and Workshops has been made. An excerpt from their website indicates that ….

Repositories have been successfully established — within and across institutions — as a major source of digital information in a variety of environments such as research, education and cultural heritage. In a world of increasingly dispersed and modularized digital services and content, it remains a grand challenge for the future to cross the borders between diverse poles:

• the web and the repository,
• knowledge and technology,
• wild and curated content,
• linked and isolated data,
• disciplinary and institutional systems,
• scholars and service providers,
• ad-hoc and long-term access,
• ubiquitous and personalized environments,
• the cloud and the desktop.

The Conference will be held in Madrid, Spain, 6-9 July 2010.