Workbook on Digital Private Papers > Digital repositories > Comparing repository software for preserving personal digital archives
Comparing repository software for preserving personal digital archives
Managerial concerns
Managers must be content that commitment to a given open source repository and its community is a sound managerial decision. The software may be free, but there are costs and risks that should be assessed. Factors relevant here relate mainly to the depth and breadth of the user community and the organisation's ability to provide ongoing support for the software:
| Name | Community is sustainable |
|---|---|
| Detail | Both DSpace and Fedora originated as projects and are now becoming open source communities. Committed community members and mechanisms for distributed governance, development and support are critical to this transition and the sustainability of the community. Selection of DSpace or Fedora may not require capital expenditure on software licences, but will require commitment of time and personnel that may amount to equal expense, albeit for better value. Given the resources required, it is important to choose a solution which can be sustained in the medium- to long-term. |
| DSpace | Supported |
| Detail | Has a governance structure including a core group of committers who are permitted to commit changes out of a larger group of contributers. There are several live installations. |
| Fedora | Supported |
| Detail | Fedora users hail from a variety of groups: academic computing groups, research libraries, archives, publishing societies, government agencies and commercial vendors. This is because the repository is intended to act as a foundation for several kinds of information management systems; its design is therefore flexible enough to accommodate multiple usages and their data models. The software has a growing user-base in Europe, Australia and the United States. Community governance, working groups and developer guidelines are being drawn up as the transition to fully open source development takes place. The Fedora Project has evolved into a non-profit organisation called Fedora Commons to act as custodian of the software platform and steer its future direction. It was awarded $4.9M from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in August 2007. |
| Name | Similar users exist |
|---|---|
| Detail | In open source communities, the users of the software are responsible for steering the development of the software. The more users that share your vision, the more likely that the community will add the functionality you need to the software; it is therefore useful to know whether organisations with similar missions have adopted the software. Paradigm was interested in users working in digital preservation, with archival materials or other complex materials. |
| DSpace | Partial support |
| Detail | Interest in digital preservation has increased in recent years and the DSpace community is interested in adding relevant functionality to the repository software. Archival users of DSpace, or users with complex collections, are smaller in number, but growing. |
| Fedora | Supported |
| Detail | The Fedora community has several members working with complex collections and with an interest in digital preservation. There are also other users working in records management and archival domains. |
| Name | Can personnel be recruited/trained easily to support the software in the event of staff turn over? |
|---|---|
| Detail | Is the repository so esoteric that staff turnover is catastrophic? How easy will it be to recruit people to administer, develop and use the software? |
| DSpace | Partial support |
| Detail | DSpace is largely self-contained and uses mainstream open source components; it should be relatively easy to recruit and/or train appropriate technical personnel. Badly or undocumented esoteric organisation specific modifications may cause problems, but these can be mitigated by following the open source philosophy of feeding back changes (so long as these are accepted by the community) and by documenting local customisations. Training users should be straightforward. Provision of training for new and intermediate DSpace administrators, repository managers and developers would be useful. |
| Fedora | Partial support |
| Detail | Fedora also uses mainstream open source components, but its implementation is more flexible than DSpace and there is a steeper learning curve for technical and non-technical staff. If a well-documented user-friendly installation is present, training technical and non-technical users in its use is less problematic. If a repository is in development, this could pose greater problems. Provision of training for new and intermediate Fedora administrators, repository managers and developers would be useful. |
| Name | Support available |
|---|---|
| Detail | Support can and should be provided by a variety of methods:
|
| DSpace | Supported |
| Detail | Documentation tends to be technical in nature and it would be helpful if it were re-organised to meet the needs of the different groups within the DSpace community. The consolidation of documentation in one place (clearly identifying which version it supports and who should read it) would help. There is some end-user and management information at http://www.dspace.org, but establishing what Dspace can or cannot do can require significant effort as you also need to review the information on the wiki and identify which version the text concerns. For technical support a good starting point is: Commercial support of DSpace (for set-up or ongoing support) in the UK or elsewhere is not easy to locate. Some references from the DSpace website would be useful. DSpace User Group meetings are held regularly. Community support in the UK may be provided by the JISC Repositories Support Project. DSpace has an active mailing list. |
| Fedora | Supported |
| Detail | Documentation is predominantly aimed at a technical audience. The rationale for some implementation decisions needs to be explained more clearly for a non-technical audience who are often the key-decision makers. The tutorials need to be updated to reduce the learning curve. As Fedora is a flexible framework oriented approach, more documentation on sample usage scenarios and, for example, content-model how-tos would be beneficial. There are working groups exploring some of these areas and progress reports would be of assistance. Support is via the mailing-list and the Wiki does capture some how-to information. Vendor support is available through VTLS, who provide additional services to Fedora, though these are currently based on an earlier version of Fedora and therefore lack much of the useful preservation- and authenticity-related features available in the current version of Fedora (2.2). The Fedora community does meet through regular conferences, but the larger gatherings tend to be in the United States. A UK and Ireland Fedora Users Group has been established for more local support. Community support in the UK may be provided by the JISC Repositories Support Project. Fedora has an active mailing list. Fedora has established a number of working groups to take forward development of the community and the software. |
| Name | Has realistic learning curve |
|---|---|
| Detail | Repository implementations are likely to start small, meaning reliance on a small number of curatorial and technical staff who have familiarised themselves with the software. Repository systems which are difficult for new staff to understand present a risk in a fluid labour market. |
| DSpace | Supported |
| Detail | DSpace administrators are supported by the DSpace System Documentation and the online community. New administrators will still need time to familiarise themselves with the repository, but DSpace provides documentation aimed at new system administrators. Ordinary users should find the existing DSpace user interface reasonably familiar and the online help should prove sufficient. A printable version of the online help user guide does not appear to be available. |
| Fedora | Partial support |
| Detail | The learning curve for Fedora is quite steep, but the system documentation is reasonably clear and Fedora has a supportive online community who can provide assistance when the documentation is unclear. Ingest tools for Fedora are slowly appearing which will reduce the repository specific component of the learning curve for non-technical users which, at present, is still quite high. |
| Name | Availability of information for planning purposes |
|---|---|
| Detail | Managers need access to development priorities and timetables. Knowing when features will be implemented can help institutions decide when they should start working on a local solution to a problem (which should be submitted for consideration of inclusion in the main codebase) and whether they should wait for a central response. |
| DSpace | Partial support |
| Detail | The DSpace Architecture Review Group has published recommendations which will inform development of version 2. Confirmation of what will be implemented when is not yet available. See DSpace Architecture Review Group, Toward the Next Generation: Recommendations for the next DSpace Architecture (January 24, 2007). |
| Fedora | Partial support |
| Detail | The priorities are not explicit and information on the website is out-of-date. The nature of the working groups and diagrams of the proposed Fedora framework provide implicit information. Information about timings is not clear. |
