Fedora IR PilotDigital Services Team

Alliance Summer MeetingJuly 13, 2012

Chris Cox (WWU) Chair Kira Homo (UO)Jennifer Ward (OHSU)Kyle Banerjee (Staff liaison)

Friday Valentine (Chemeketa)Isaac Gilman (Pacific)Ray Henry (PCC)

Why explore a pilot?• Virtually all institutions are interested in IR cost

containment

• Almost 90% provide or plan to provide locally-held digitized content

• Significant majorities are interested in:o Hosted serviceso Aggregating content o Collaborative opportunities

Why Fedora/Islandora?

• In 2011, DST examined a number of IR options (DSpace, OJS, Eprints, Greenstone, Omeka, CONTENTdm, SimpleDL, BePress, Fedora/Islandora, Fedora/Hydra, IRPlus, Zentity, LASR)

• Fedora had most flexible back end which would serve the greatest number of use cases

• Islandora was the only viable front end for Fedora. Hydra is way too nascent and Fez is obsolete

• Easy migration path

Built in features• Institution specific branding• Browse and search functionality with facets that

allow users to drill into topics• Easily harvested by Google • Make resources visible in WorldCat Local via OAI-

PMH• Handles specialized content types• Thumbnails for images and documents• Zoom functionality provided for images

Why partner with Colorado?• Setting up and maintaining Islandora is nontrivial

• Colorado has expertise and the ability to support a production installation

• Lack of depth of Fedora/Islandora knowledge in the Alliance

Goals of pilot• Test the technology

• Determine appropriate workflows

• Develop migration strategy from other platforms

• Model recurring fixed and overhead costs as well as staff time

First the good news

Goals of pilotTest the technology

Determine appropriate workflows

Develop migration strategy from other platforms

Model recurring fixed and overhead costs as well as staff time

But there were challenges

ChallengesNot enough institutions ready to move now to be financially viable

Shared ILS initiative absorbs much energy

Transitions in Digital Services Program and technical issues create support and functionality issue

Recommendations• Wait for the time being• If we enter into a contract for a

vendor on the Shared ILS initiative that offers a credible IR solution, explore the viability of that option before taking further action

• Those specifically interested in Islandora should monitor the UO/OSU joint project

Questions?