DSpace

Winchester, MA  A "Convention of Librarians" was held in Philadelphia in the fall of 1876 [1].  On October 6, 1876 a register was passed for attendees to sign to become charter members of a new library association that would become the ALA. Records ... [More] of the American Library Association's (ALA) [2] history of achievement and service provide a way to understand the historical and societal value of librarianship. The ALA Archives consists of both analog and digital resources and "was established in the summer of 1973 [3], when ALA entered into an agreement with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to have its non-current records of value housed at the University Archives." [4] In January of 2014 [5] the ALA Archives and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign launched the ALA Institutional Repository, ALAIR [6], using DSpaceDirect [7]. Organizational records including meeting minutes, administrative documents, reports, whitepapers, newsletters, web pages, and other types of publications that illustrate the scope of the ALA community enterprise are now available in an open access repository committed to collecting, permanently storing, and providing digital access to the publications and intellectual work of the American Library Association. Read more in the DSPACEDIRECT CUSTOMER PROFILE: University of Illinois: American Library Association Archives [8] [1] http://www.ala.org/aboutala/history [2] http://www.ala.org [3] http://www.ala.org/offices/library/alaarchive [4] http://archives.library.illinois.edu/ala/about-us/ [5] http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2014/01/ala-creates-institutional-repository [6] http://alair.ala.org [7] http://dspacedirect.org [8] http://dspacedirect.org/profile/52     [Less]

Winchester, MA  A "Convention of Librarians" was held in Philadelphia in the fall of 1876 [1].  On October 6, 1876 a register was passed for attendees to sign to become charter members of a new library association that would become the ALA. Records ... [More] of the American Library Association's (ALA) [2] history of achievement and service provide a way to understand the historical and societal value of librarianship. The ALA Archives consists of both analog and digital resources and "was established in the summer of 1973 [3], when ALA entered into an agreement with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to have its non-current records of value housed at the University Archives." [4] In January of 2014 [5] the ALA Archives and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign launched the ALA Institutional Repository, ALAIR [6], using DSpaceDirect [7]. Organizational records including meeting minutes, administrative documents, reports, whitepapers, newsletters, web pages, and other types of publications that illustrate the scope of the ALA community enterprise are now available in an open access repository committed to collecting, permanently storing, and providing digital access to the publications and intellectual work of the American Library Association. Read more in the DSPACEDIRECT CUSTOMER PROFILE: University of Illinois: American Library Association Archives [8] [1] http://www.ala.org/aboutala/history [2] http://www.ala.org [3] http://www.ala.org/offices/library/alaarchive [4] http://archives.library.illinois.edu/ala/about-us/ [5] http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2014/01/ala-creates-institutional-repository [6] http://alair.ala.org [7] http://dspacedirect.org [8] http://dspacedirect.org/profile/52     [Less]

From Rita Van Duinen, ‎Curriculum and Research Strategist, CLIR (Council on Library and Information Resources) The 2014 E-Science Institute held its in-person capstone event April 2–4 in St. Louis. This was the last offering of the institute by ... [More] DuraSpace. Staff from 16 institutions, including one international organization, made up the final cohort. Since the E-Science Institute began in 2011, staff members from 113 institutions have taken part for a common purpose: to develop a strategic agenda for e-research support while also developing new working relationships. During the three-month institute, institutional teams undertook a series of exercises, including an environmental scan, interviews of key stakeholders, and a SWOT analysis. A select team of faculty facilitated this work through a series of webinars and supplemental sessions. At the capstone event, faculty and institutional teams came together to share experiences and begin developing strategic agendas for e-research support. At the outset, there was much discussion among the teams about a variety of topics related to e-research services at their libraries. Common themes included staffing issues and approaches to re-skilling existing staff, lack of funding to develop e-research services, how to identify and establish relationships with key stakeholders on and off campus, risk assessment of implementing—or not implementing—e-research services, the need to identify the library as a place where these services can and do happen, and how to develop a common language about such services so that stakeholders are engaged. At the end of the event participants were asked to reflect on their E-Science Institute experience. Staff from one institution said that they felt renewed and that a renaissance was taking place in libraries; five to ten years ago much of the discussion was focused on the library becoming obsolete. Others shared their relief in knowing that they weren’t alone in their struggles and frustration in getting e-research services off the ground at their institutions. It is a big issue to tackle and one that requires ongoing planning and discourse with support and engagement across the campus community. There is a desire to keep the conversation going across the current cohort and with other institutions involved in developing e-research services at their libraries. And so the conversation continues. Participants will keep up the dialog within the relationships they have formed at the institute. The CLIR/DLF E-Research Peer Network and Mentoring Group (ERPNMG), now being established, will support these efforts. ERPNMG will provide a mix of formal and informal opportunities for networking, resource sharing, and collaboration supported by CLIR/DLF’s organizational resources, as well as access to structured webinars and personalized consultations. CLIR/DLF is working with E-Science Institute faculty and CLIR/DLF postdoctoral fellows in data curation to develop and facilitate the group. Ultimately, ERPNMG will create a network of practitioners through the process of sharing information on implementing strategic agendas. The first official webinar will take place April 23 from 1:00-2:30 PM EST. A series of webinars and personalized consultations will run from April to October 2014. The course will culminate with an in-person event on October 26, 2014, where peer groups will have the opportunity to report back, connect, network, and collaborate. Participants will be encouraged to continue engagement with the community during the course and maintain regular meetings and contact after the course ends. CLIR/DLF will support the community of practice that emerges as a result of the networking group. Consider becoming a part of the E-Research Peer Network and Mentoring Group and help us keep the conversation going. For more information please visit http://www.diglib.org/learning/erpnmg/. [Less]

Winchester, MA  A Fedora 4.0 beta will be released in time for Open Repositories 2014. The full list of features to be included in the 4.0 beta and the release is available here. One of the primary goals of Fedora 4 is to produce stable ... [More] , production-ready software that can be used by the entire repository community. The objective of the 4.0 release is to give the development team an opportunity to receive feedback from early adopters and improve the stability of the software before recommending it for existing Fedora 3 repositories. To this end, the initial Fedora 4.0 release is targeted at new installations, not migrations from existing Fedora installations. There are a number of desirable features, including support for migrations from earlier versions of Fedora, that are not scheduled to appear in the 4.0 release. Instead, these features will be scheduled, based on priority and available development resources, for upcoming releases in the 4.x line. Migration support is a particularly important feature, so this is likely to be included in the 4.1 release. All planned features, along with their associated use cases, can be found on the wiki. The timeline for the 4.0 release, along with further releases in the 4.x line, is subject to the level of community engagement. Fedora 4 is designed, developed, tested, and documented entirely based on community contributions. For Fedora 4 to be a successful project these contributions need to continue. There are at least three ways to contribute: Acceptance Testing Fedora 4.0 features are tied to use cases submitted by members of the community. Once a use case is considered to be satisfied by the development team, it goes back to the community for acceptance testing. No use case or feature is considered complete until it has been validated by the community. The 4.0 feature set, with associated use cases, can be found in the wiki. Acceptance testing can be as simple as loading up the one-click installer, testing a specific feature, and providing feedback. More information can be found on the Acceptance Testing page in the wiki. If you are interested in testing a use case or feature, please contact David Wilcox ([email protected]). Beta Pilots In addition to acceptance testing, we also need more in-depth testing in the form of Beta Pilots. Institutions participating as Beta Pilots will sign a letter of agreement to commit to a 4-6 month testing phase where they will install the Fedora 4.0 beta, ingest a variety of content, and test the software as extensively as possible. The Fedora Product Manager and Fedora Tech Lead will work with these institutions to hold regular update meetings and to produce a detailed report at the end of the six month Beta Pilot period. Participating institutions will have access to support from the Fedora 4 developer community, including the Fedora mailing lists, IRC channel, and regular meetings. They will also be referenced in press releases and other materials relating to the launch of Fedora 4.0. Developer Commitments Fedora 4 is developed entirely by volunteers from the community. The current set of volunteer commitments extends until the end of June, so we need to line up the following six months of commitments soon. These commitments are essential to Fedora 4 development; without them, we will be unable to deliver a 4.0 release or subsequent releases in the 4.x line. The Fedora 4 development team follows an Agile “Scrum” methodology; developers sign up for a number of two-week code sprints, and they are expected to be fully committed to the development team for the length of each scheduled sprint. Any institution that commits a developer for at least 0.5 FTE over the six month period is eligible to sit on the Leadership Group, which helps guide the software in the right direction. Please contact Andrew Woods ([email protected]) to sign up and join the team! [Less]

From the Islandora Team Charlottetown, PEI  Islandora Camp will take place May 7 - 9, 2014 on the campus of King's College in London, England. This will be Islandora's second time in Europe and first time in the UK. Full details and registration are ... [More] on the camp website: http://islandora.ca/camps/uk2014. Single-day registration is now available for those who do not want to attend the full camp. Each day of Islandora camp has a different focus, from a broad overview of our software and community, to a day of hands-on workshops, to an in-depth focus on individual modules and tools (including TEI support, institutional repositories, and novel metadata displays). Islandora is an open-source software framework designed to help institutions and organizations and their audiences collaboratively manage, and discover digital assets using a best-practices framework. Combining Fedora and Drupal, Islandora was originally developed by the University of Prince Edward Island's Robertson Library, and is now implemented and contributed to by an ever-growing international community. The full schedule of Islandora Camp sessions is available here: http://islandora.ca/camps/uk2014/schedule [Less]

From Cathy N. Hartman, Associate Dean of Libraries, University of North Texas Denton, TX  The 14th International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications and DCMI Annual Meeting focused on "Metadata Intersections: Bridging the Archipelago ... [More] of Cultural Memory", will be held  October 8-11, 2014 in Austin, Texas, USA. The complete Call for Participation may be found here: http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2014/cfp DCMI's annual conference addresses models, technologies and applications of metadata. Metadata is fundamental in enabling ubiquitous access to cultural and scientific resources through galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM). While fundamental, GLAM traditions in documentation and organization lead to significant differences in both their languages of description and domain practices. And yet, the push is on for "radically open cultural heritage data" that bridges these differences as well as those across the humanities and the natural sciences. DC-2014 will explore the role of metadata in spanning the archipelago of siloed cultural memory in an emerging context of linked access to data repositories as well as repositories of cultural artifacts. IMPORTANT DATES: • Peer-Reviewed Papers, Project Reports & Posters Submission Deadline: 3 May 2014 Author Notification: 12 July 2014 Final Copy: 16 August 2014 • Special & Panel Sessions, Tutorials & Workshops Submission Deadline: 3 May 2014 Author Notification: 1 June 2014 • Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations Submission Deadline: 2 June 2014 Author Notification: 30 June 2014 TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS: (1) Peer-reviewed Papers, Project Reports & Posters (2) Special & Panel Session, Tutorials & Workshops (3) From the field: Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations FOR MORE INFORMATION: Conference Chairs: • William Moen, University of North Texas - william (dot) moen (at) unt (dot) edu • Amy Rushing, University of Texas at San Antonio - amy (dot) rushing (at) utsa.edu [Less]

From Jefferson Bailey, Strategic Initiatives Manager, Metropolitan New York Library Council Washington, DC  The National Digital Stewardship Alliance InnovationWorking Group is pleased to open the nominations for the 2014 NDSA Innovation ... [More] Awards. These awards are an example of the NDSA's commitment to encourage and recognize innovation in the digital stewardship community. For more information on the details of last year's recipients, please see the blog post announcing last year's winners here. The NDSA Innovation Awards focus on recognizing excellence in one or more of the following areas: • Individuals making a significant, innovative contribution to the field of digital preservation; • Projects whose goals or outcomes represent an inventive, meaningful addition to the understanding or processes required for successful, sustainable digital preservation stewardship; • Organizations taking an innovative approach to providing support and guidance to the digital preservation community; • Future stewards, especially students, but including educators, trainers or curricular endeavors, taking a creative approach to advancing knowledge of digital preservation theory and practices. Acknowledging that innovative digital stewardship can take many forms, eligibility for these awards has been left purposely broad. Nominations are open to anyone or anything that falls into the above categories and any entity can be nominated for one of the four awards. Nominees should be US-based people and projects or collaborative international projects that contain a US-based partner. This is your chance to help us highlight and reward novel, risk-taking, and inventive approaches to the challenges of digital preservation. Nominations are now being accepted and you can submit a nomination using this quick, easy online submission form. You can also submit a nomination by emailing a brief  description, justification and the URL and/or contact information of your nominee to ndsa (at) loc.gov. Nominations will be accepted until Friday May 2, 2014 and winners announced in mid-May. The prizes will be plaques presented to the winners at the Digital Preservation 2014 meeting taking place in the Washington, DC area on July 22-24, 2014. Winners will be asked to deliver a very brief talk about their activities as part of the awards ceremony and travel funds are expected to be available for these invited presenters. Take a moment and nominate your favorite person or project at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ndsa/awards.html?loclr=blogsig. [Less]

“DSpaceDirect Details” is a bi-weekly series of blog posts relating key features of the only low-cost hosted repository solution for discovery, access, and archiving, to common institutional repository requirements. Contact [email protected] to ... [More] have the current post delivered to your in-box. Winchester, MA  Does it seem like just as you get the wrinkles ironed out of your customized, open source repository system the next software upgrade is issued by developers and ready for you to install? IT and library professionals are aware that FOSS (free and open source software) like DSpace is available at no cost. Estimating the TCO (total cost of ownership) however, beyond acquiring open source software, includes costs for hardware acquisition, ongoing maintenance, in-house or contracted support and last but not least, upgrades to existing software. These expenses must be factored into overall budgets to determine the true cost of ownership. Not with DSpaceDirect. Customers never need to upgrade because they have access to current DSpace services and improvements as soon as they sign up for DSpaceDirect. The latest feature-rich release of DSpace is always available because DSpaceDirect runs the most current version in a hosted environment. DSpace 4.0 gives users access to key features such as integration with DuraCloud storage for long-term access, improved UI capabilities and better statistics reporting. DSpaceDirect takes the guess work out of TCO–hardware, servers, upgrades and maintenance are included in the low annual subscription fees. Find out for yourself at http://dspacedirect.org/pricing ABOUT DSPACEDIRECT DSpaceDirect is the only hosted repository solution for low-cost discovery, access, archiving, and preservation from DuraSpace (http://duraspace.org), an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. DSpaceDirect is available with convenient features that include fast start-up, you-pick customization, no-cost upgrades, content preservation options, anytime data access and all-the-time data control–all at a price that puts solutions for long-term access to digital scholarly assets within reach of institutions of any size. • Get DSpaceDirect details: http://dspacedirect.org/benefits • DSpaceDirect pricing page: http://dspacedirect.org/pricing • Get a DSpaceDirect quote: http://dspacedirect.org/inquiry [Less]

“DSpaceDirect Details” is a bi-weekly series of blog posts relating key features of the only low-cost hosted repository solution for discovery, access, and archiving, to common institutional repository requirements. Contact [email protected] to ... [More] have the current post delivered to your in-box. Winchester, MA  Does it seem like just as you get the wrinkles ironed out of your customized, open source repository system the next software upgrade is issued by developers and ready for you to install? IT and library professionals are aware that FOSS (free and open source software) like DSpace is available at no cost. Estimating the TCO (total cost of ownership) however, beyond acquiring open source software, includes costs for hardware acquisition, ongoing maintenance, in-house or contracted support and last but not least, upgrades to existing software. These expenses must be factored into overall budgets to determine the true cost of ownership. Not with DSpaceDirect. Customers never need to upgrade because they have access to current DSpace services and improvements as soon as they sign up for DSpaceDirect. The latest feature-rich release of DSpace is always available because DSpaceDirect runs the most current version in a hosted environment. DSpace 4.0 gives users access to key features such as integration with DuraCloud storage for long-term access, improved UI capabilities and better statistics reporting. DSpaceDirect takes the guess work out of TCO–hardware, servers, upgrades and maintenance are included in the low annual subscription fees. Find out for yourself at http://dspacedirect.org/pricing ABOUT DSPACEDIRECT DSpaceDirect is the only hosted repository solution for low-cost discovery, access, archiving, and preservation from DuraSpace (http://duraspace.org), an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. DSpaceDirect is available with convenient features that include fast start-up, you-pick customization, no-cost upgrades, content preservation options, anytime data access and all-the-time data control–all at a price that puts solutions for long-term access to digital scholarly assets within reach of institutions of any size. • Get DSpaceDirect details: http://dspacedirect.org/benefits • DSpaceDirect pricing page: http://dspacedirect.org/pricing • Get a DSpaceDirect quote: http://dspacedirect.org/inquiry [Less]

From From Debra Hanken Kurtz, Director, Texas Digital Library Austin, TX  In response to the popularity of the previously offered Advanced DSpace training opportunity, the Texas Digital Library is offering an expanded 4-day Advanced DSpace course on ... [More] June 3-6 in Austin, Texas. Registration will open for the course on Wednesday, April 11 and will be available to TDL members and non-members on that date. Registrants from TDL member organizations will have the opportunity to register at a discounted rate. Details about the course are below. More information is available on the TDL website. • Dates: June 3-6 (four full days) • Location: Perry-Castañeda Library, Room 1.202 (on the UT Austin campus) • Registration Rates: $600 (non-members); $425 (TDL members) • Instructor: James Creel, Texas A&M Libraries James Creel is the Senior Lead Software Applications Developer at Texas A&M University Libraries, where he supervises the software development team.  James manages the development and maintenance of digital library and information management applications and provides TAMU Libraries faculty with training and tools for transmitting and curating content and metadata.  James has a BA in Economics and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.  James has 7 years experience with customizing, administering, and importing and disseminating collections with DSpace. Course Content: The four-day course will be broken down into three modules, covering the topics listed below. DSpace 3.2 will be the version used in this offering of the course. Configuration • Themes and Aspects • Internationalization • Authentication • Media Filters • Curation Tasks • Submission Workflows • Controlled Vocabularies • Statistics • Discovery, Search, and Browse • OAI Content transmission • OAI protocols and crosswalks • OAI harvesting • SWORD servers and clients • Batch Imports Theming • Creating a new theme • Colors, Fonts, and Layouts with CSS • Content presentation with XSL • Using semantic web services with Javascript and AJAX Course Prerequisites: • Participants should at minimum have knowledge of the DSpace user interface and have taken the Intro to DSpace training course (or some equivalent). It is assumed that participants will be very familiar with the following aspects of DSpace: Community/Collection hierarchy; epersons, groups, and authorization management; and the metadata registry. • Participants should be able to perform basic tasks at a system command line, such as • listing files and directories • changing the working directory • executing programs • Participants should be comfortable editing text files.  The course material will involve editing a variety of DSpace configuration files. • Basic knowledge of programming languages and web development will enhance one's appreciation of the material.  Examples on customizing themes will involve XML, XSLT, CSS, and JavaScript.  Examples on writing new curation tasks and media filters will involve Java. Please send any questions to: [email protected] [Less]