A series of publications to stay up-to-date on repositories emerging technologies and trends. From updates on current developments to explorations of important overarching issues. These to-the-point publications are an excellent resource to share with IT staff, and faculty, to open a dialogue and discuss implications for your institution.

The Hydra Project

February 15, 2013

Repositories have proven themselves as powerful tools for managing digital content in many different contexts. But experience has also shown that there are real, practical limits in trying to extend a single repository solution to meet the manifold needs of most institutions for their full range of digital content and use cases. Relatively narrow and inflexible application front ends can be used to create single-purpose repository-powered solutions, but they do not lend themselves to being quickly and easily repurposed to meet variations in content type or user interactions. There is a need to investigate how a repository can support the lifecycle of digital content for different purposes, from creation through to deletion or preservation, using workflows built with web services.

Download the complete Hydra project briefing.

The Catmandu/LibreCat Software Development Project

An Open Collaboration

February 15, 2013

Institutional repositories and academic bibliographies have traditionally been thought of as integrated systems with cataloging workflows, file management, user management and a powerful search engine frontend for end-users.

This integration provided users with one common look and feel, but system implementers often ended up with monolithic systems capable only of very specialized tasks. Libraries often find themselves creating and installing separate cataloging projects with some of the same workflows as institutional repositories, but with different end results.

Download the complete briefing.