We're a mid-sized university library (10,000 fte) trying to get an IR off
the ground to showcase student and faculty research. We've had a DSpace
instance running for several years, but we use so few of its features that
DSpace ends up being more trouble than it is worth. In particular, it's
very frustrating to deal with metadata editing, file management, the Handle
URL system, and HTML/CSS theming.

I am considering leaving the DSpace model in favor of our "IR" just being a
glorified FTP site that MARC records in our catalog can point to. I might
even build a tiny frontend using some scripting language to add IP
authentication, URL redirect stuff, or a Google Scholar interface, but
that's really it. No metadata modelling, no preservation features, no
indexing.

Does anyone have experience using a very small, file-based (as opposed to
database-driven) application as a foundation for an IR? Are there any
problems I should anticipate?

Joshua Welker
Information Technology Librarian
James C. Kirkpatrick Library
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
JCKL 2260
660.543.8022