Comments on: The DSpace Digital Repository: A Project Analysis

By: Dirk Swart

Dirk Swart — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:25:22 +0000

This is a great article. Any chance you could do the same thing for Fedora?

Jenny, I completely agree with you about open source, but want to add that in my experience implementing FOSS at universities is typically more expensive than an off the shelf solution, and that a significant portion of the costs are hidden, so much so that it may look cheaper.

This increased cost is not necessarily bad - it spends money "at home", usually on people, and given low staff turnover there is at least a strong case that this is a sound investment.

By: Steven Chabot

Steven Chabot — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:07:34 +0000

Jenny,

All things with which I agree, and which I also addressed in my analysis.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:04:32 +0000

I’m surprised that the fact that DSpace is open source is considered a ‘problem’. It is just open source. Open source has considerable advantages over proprietary software where the code is unavailable - you can actually do things with it. This is a benefit and not a problem. Anyone who works with open source, including libraries, understands that open source is not free - that you need to have the tech support in place or available to support the implementation. But products like DSpace (and others like Moodle, Sakai, Shibboleth etc) have been built by a group or community who have a professional approach to the development process. It’s not a world of cowboys out there any more -but communities of contributors. The establishment of the DSpace foundation also means that DSpace will be properly supported into the future.

By: Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics, Cambridge - Jim Downing » Blog Archive »

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:22:47 +0000

[...] Steven Chabot has posted an analysis of the DSpace project and software (Full report in PDF). As has been addressed, there are some problems with DSpace. In the first place, the software is open source. While this does come with its own benefits, it also comes with its own problems. Commercial support for the software does not exist at this time, neither for installation nor for later technical issues. Libraries used to working with commercial software or ILS vendors may find implementation difficult. Furthermore, some who have previously implemented the software have had problems with performance while updating files and with the structure of the communities, although these may have been fixed in successive releases of the software. The major difficulty we have found is with DSpace’s handling of metadata. While we feel that the number of fields in Dublin Core is adequate for most if not all uses (DCMI Usage Board 2006), we are troubled by the lack of authority control when completing its fields. Without some control over uniform titles, authors and subjects accessing the items in the future will very problematic. However, this could be solved at an institutional policy level, with guidelines for submission and librarians or faculty having roles in the “workflow” overseeing metadata. While there is no scope in this paper for a discussion of necessity of controlled vocabulary, we will stress that this necessity does not just apply to paper documents, but to digital ones as well. [...]

By: Steven Chabot

Steven Chabot — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 01:07:05 +0000

Thank you for your comments.

And I agree with you on the authority control issue. I realize that things like that are difficult, but I had to say something negative about the project. And as I indicated, authority control could be implemented by a librarian.

However my conclusions are genuine. I am particularly excited by the project and I would love to get involved with DSpace installation at my own university, but it doesn't seem to be as publicized as it could be. I never new U of T had is own repository all through my undergrad here, and looking at it now things are kind of a mess.

Too bad that the student positions they advertise seem to be for undergraduates and not graduate library students.

By: Dorothea

Dorothea — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:26:13 +0000

Thank you; this is an excellent summary.

Re: authority control. While DSpace could conceivably provide a scaffold for authority control, even tying it into national or international authority files wouldn't solve the problem in fields where the monograph is not the primary mode of publication. Too many scientists don't have authority records!

For what it's worth, I check authority via the LoC, intervene in the database as necessary to unite author representations, and don't fret about representations for authors with no authority records.

A union authority database would be a wonderful thing...