Unit 11 wk 1 a review

All of the open source digital repository platforms have been impressive in one way or another. Each product has a large community of code writers, and users that should ensure a continuous stream of new and useful features. I enjoyed learning about and experimenting with the OAI harvester in week 10. The concept of using OAI-PMH to aggregate metadata, typified by the PKPHarvester we installed on a virtual machine in Unit 10, is an effective method of finding digital resources and enabling scholarly communications. Without exposing digital collections to metadata harvesting systems, digital content would be hidden from view in many thousands of information silos.

At this point in my understanding of digital collections, dspace and eprints are the best choices for my digital collection. The two platforms are the most popular open source repositories in the world with over 1,000 sites deploying one or the other. Both are, in my judgment, a lot easier to add items to than drupal or omeka. The work flow template in eprints is a very helpful tool allowing for the easy deposit of scholarly content using a standardized methodology. Embedding links to the SHERPA RoMEO rights directory is a great feature in eprints as is classifying content by the authoritative LCC schema. The more content and the more standardized the metadata the more effective the respository will be as a domain and as a node within a large scale distributed digital ecosystem.

DSpace is also relatively easy to use, search, and deposit items. The look and feel of DSpace is a little too cookie cutter but skilled developers can modify the DSpace platform to look and feel like a slick commercial website. The DSpace handle.net system ensures reliable persistent access to digital objects by popular search engines. The communities and collections architecture of DSpace is logical and transparent. There are a lot of good features, and more experience using and depositing to a DSpace repository would find more things to admire about DSpace.

Like library, archives and museum repository managers in the real world , I have found ePrints and DSpace to be very attractive systems and it will be difficult to select one over the other for my digital collection.