Hi Scott,

No numbers here, but I recommend budgeting for either a) ongoing
programmer involvement (staff), or b) support costs with an
appropriate company for the platform you choose. Minimizing the amount
of unique code a programmer has to write can also go a distance to
reducing ongoing costs.

Source: In my work as manager of the Islandora project, I've come
across some institutions facing challenges for interoperability,
migration, and updating because the system has been customized by one
programmer, long since departed (not that this is the model you are
proposing, but perhaps the horror-story extreme) :P Obviously I am
biased toward open-source, but I think you need a team that is
involved in the community surrounding the software to reap the
greatest benefits, and ongoing programmer support...

On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 10:04 AM, scott bacon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It may be a fool's errand to ask how much it would cost to implement an
> open source institutional repository, but here goes!
>
>
> Let's first focus on open source and say that there won't be vendor costs
> for ingesting or downloading materials, that we already have our own
> purchased servers dedicated to the IR, our own digitization program
> (scanners and staff), and that we have already tallied cloud-based storage
> and preservation costs.
>
>
> I have heard that the costs of implementing an open source IR can be as
> cheap as how much employee time is dedicated to the project. So you have a
> programmer spend a year or so on implementation and hire a librarian to
> manage it after that, let's say. Beyond that, are there any hard-and-fast
> costs associated with getting an IR up and running?
>
>
> I have also read somewhere that it costs just as much to implement an open
> source IR as it does a proprietary one, but we'd certainly like to reap the
> benefits of having ultimate control over our own system if at all possible.
>
>
> By the way, if it helps, my institution is classified *Master's S*, with an
> undergraduate enrollment of just under 10,000.
>
>
> Numbers will vary wildly of course, but if anyone could give an idea of the
> cost of any component of a project like this, open source or proprietary,
> it would be most helpful.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Scott Bacon



-- 
================================
Kirsta Stapelfeldt, MA, MLIS
Islandora Project/Repository Manager
Robertson Library
University of Prince Edward Island

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Skype Name: Kirsta.Stapelfeldt
902.620.5096