Hi Josh,

As another repository person, with a tidal wave of headache-inducing migrations from homegrown systems approaching me, I would like to second the notion that a homegrown approach seems like a lot more work and more difficult in the long term. Perhaps another approach would be worth exploring?

An option that helps limit the work and the costs is to join a consortial/collaborative IR with other institutions — that is, if such a thing is available to you. Collaborative IRs are becoming quite the thing in Canada — Arca <http://arcabc.ca/> in BC supports 14 (and growing) small-to-medium colleges and universities <http://arcabc.ca/arca-repositories> for very low annual costs, and members have a robust, attractive, fully-functional Islandora repository with many committing between zero and one FTE to the job. Arca is coordinated by BC’s post-secondary library consortium, BC ELN. The Ontario Colleges Library Service is working on the same thing <https://www.ocls.ca/services/core>.

If there’s no consortium you can work with that is doing that sort of thing (or could be persuaded that this sort of thing would be valuable and worthwhile), it could be done on a smaller scale, by exploring partnerships with other universities to share an IR. Another BC example - Vancouver Island University and Royal Roads University share a DSpace repository <http://www.royalroads.ca/news-releases/post-secondary-partnership-showcases-research-0>, and do it very cost-effectively. Two institutions sharing a repository might have to compromise a little on specific features/customizations, but they gain a lot of value for nearly half the work. (Some extra governance work to manage the sharing, of course, but it’s not that bad.)

Such partnerships may or may not be available to you, but it could be worth investigating.

Cheers,

Brandon Weigel
Coordinator and Arca Technical Lead
BC Electronic Library Network
Phone: 604.401.1794
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: https://bceln.ca, http://arcabc.ca

> On Oct 25, 2017, at 9:33 PM, Tom Cramer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Josh,
> 
> None of those pieces is an IR, but do you think
> that when taken as a whole they could comprise an IR?
> 
> Yes. I think it’s very healthy to think of the IR as a set of services, rather than a single software product. And I really like the idea of using your catalog as the discovery environment. (That’s what we do…) That said, I have to say that...
> 
> a. your approach doesn’t sound like less work overall (and in fact it might be more?)
> b. it raises the question of how your institution might support this over the longterm
> 
> It might still be viable, especially if it jibes with your institutional technology strategy and staff capacity.
> 
> Have you also considered moving to a cloud IR, such as DSpaceDirect<http://dspacedirect.org/> or hosting from Atmire<https://www.atmire.com/services/dspace-hosting>?
> 
> - Tom
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 25, 2017, at 2:16 PM, Josh Welker <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> 
> Hi Bryan,
> 
> I agree that a repository is more than documents, and in this model we
> would still do metadata, indexing, etc. It would just be handled by a
> different piece. Instead of having one system that does it all (like
> DSpace), we'd use the library catalog for metadata and indexing, backup
> tools for preservation, and this homegrown solution just for hosting
> publicly accessible files. None of those pieces is an IR, but do you think
> that when taken as a whole they could comprise an IR?
> 
> Joshua Welker
> Information Technology Librarian
> James C. Kirkpatrick Library
> University of Central Missouri
> Warrensburg, MO 64093
> JCKL 2260
> 660.543.8022
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Bryan Brown <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> 
> Josh,
> 
> 
> Theres nothing wrong with what you are describing if its all your
> institution needs, but I would be careful about promoting that as an IR. An
> IR is much more than a bunch of documents. The metadata modelling,
> preservation features and indexing that you want to leave out are what
> makes it a repository. Also, the infrastructure you are describing may lack
> flexibility in the future if you decide you want to add new features to it.
> 
> 
> Bryan J. Brown
> 
> Repository Developer
> 
> Technology & Digital Scholarship Division
> 
> Florida State University Libraries
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> on behalf of Josh
> Welker <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 2:51:34 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] Lightweight IR infrastructure
> 
> 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
> 
>