etd software options hussein suleman [email protected] university of cape town october 2003
TRANSCRIPT
Overview ETD Management Requirements Issues beyond the Basics Options Advantages of OS DL Software ETDdb EPrints DSpace Greenstone Bottom Line
ETD Management Requirements Archiving of ETDs User interface to locate and access documents
(Web-based) Administration interface to maintain archive Ability for students to submit documents Ability for university authorities to review and
accept submissions
Issues beyond the Basics Preservation – does the software support long-term
maintenance of documents? Security – how can we be certain that the system
cannot be circumvented? Stability – will it die when we need it most at the end
of year/semester? Interoperability – will it connect into other systems
such as the library ILS or the NDLTD Union Catalog? Standards-compliance – what does it adhere to? Cost – does it? Hardware – what do we need to run the software? Support – how much staffing do we need to run it?
Options Use the ILS Write your own software Outsource management to a company or
consortium Use an open source digital library (DL)
software package ETDdb EPrints DSpace Greenstone
Advantages of OS DL Software Free! OAI compliance out-of-the-box Tested by many others already Community of use – active support Closely tracks research and trends in
information management and Internet technology
Mostly tailored especially for document submission/review/archiving
ETDdb Early ETD management software created at
Virginia Tech Perl Web server CGI scripts and Mysql
database – few prerequisities and simple to install
Not very well maintained but used by many institutions and at VT for ~5 years!
ETDdb Interface
EPrints Software to archive electronic pre-prints of
journal/conference proceedings, but easily adaptable to ETDs
Perl Web server scripts and Mysql database, plus a few Perl libraries
Needs a bit of effort for initial installation and customisation but has a slick user interface
Active user community in many different areas (NDLTD uses EPrints for individuals whose institutions do not have archives!)
Modifying the software can be tricky
EPrints Interface
DSpace DSpace was developed by Hewlett-Packard for
MIT to manage its institutional repositories, but it is open source and free for anyone else to use
Has the backing of a professional software development company
Based on Java servlets, Postgres database, Java libraries
Still somewhat unproven – but very promising
DSpace Interface
Greenstone Well-known open source digital library
software, funded largely by UNESCO for digital libraries in third-world countries
Good support for compression and full-text indexing of documents
Alas, it does not support submission of documents – only works for fixed collections Not really suitable for ongoing management of
ETDs Next version may be different – 2005/6?
Bottom line No easy solutions
ETDdb – most specific and oldest tried-and-tested solution You’re largely on your own
EPrints – largest community of users Software works but difficult to change
DSpace – most professional software Still in testing phase
Links ETDdb
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ETD-db/developer/ EPrints
http://www.eprints.org/ DSpace
http://www.dspace.org/ Greenstone
http://www.greenstone.org
