(in 5 Minutes or Less)

Isaac GilmanScholarly Communications & Research Services Librarian

Pacific University (Ore.)

One word: Services

Digital Commons enables us to provide

“Traditional” repository services: posting faculty/student works

• Any file format, including image collections or embedding audio/video

• User-friendly, customizable submission forms

• Reliable, automated usage reports sent directly to content creator or collection administrator (or another interested 3rd party)

• Item-level (or collection-level) access control (e.g. off-campus availability versus on-campus availability)

• Item-level embargoes (removed automatically)

Digital Commons enables us to provide

Easy hosting of conference schedules/materials

• Unique branding for each event

• Option to embed non-native DC features like registration forms, etc.

Digital Commons enables us to provide

Journal hosting/publishing

• Unique branding for each publication

• Built-in editorial workflow management to facilitate peer review and production processes (EdiKit)

• Open access or subscription access

Digital Commons enables us to provide

Enhanced presentation for monographic materials

• User-friendly presentation of multiple files (e.g. chapters)

• Ability to embed Issuu viewer (“flippy-pages”)

• Monographic collections may be browsed by cover art/descriptive text

One word: Support

Bepress support is phenomenal

• Assigned Client Services representative

• No limits on service contacts/requests

• Same-day (often same-hour) service – depends on scope of configuration request

• As reliable as having your own in-house staff (for a fraction of the salary/benefits)

TRUE STORY: We signed a contract on May 14, 2009. Our repository was live on June 2, 2009.

Bepress support covers more than the platform

• Consultation on content recruitment – partners in making your repository successful

• Support for campus conferences/events related to repositories, open access, etc.

Other notable bits

• DC allows for batch upload via XML or Excel (batch revise, too)

• Proxy or LDAP authentication is possible for collection-level access control (we only use IP range for limited-access content)

• DC is OAI-PMH compliant

• DC subscribers may choose to participate in a PLN (Private LOCKSS Network) for back-up/archiving purposes

• Easy-to-run built-in usage reports / also uses Google Analytics

• Great indexing in Google

• Auto-generated cover pages for PDF content (branding for visitors that come directly to PDF through search engine)

Digital Commons Limitations

• DC is a presentation system, not a preservation system

• Limited to Dublin Core / Qualified Dublin Core

• DC is hosted – if you like to be in control of everything, that may be difficult for you

• Functionality of image collections is limited (though they do include slideshow and geo-location options)

• DC URLS are as stable as you can get – but there is no built in persistent identifier/URI system (e.g. HDL in DSpace)

My Bottom Line:

If you just want a repository, you can use anything.

If you want to provide a full suite of services to your institution and want to spend your time

sustaining those services, not the technology, go with Digital Commons.

But you don’t have to take my word for it…

“The biggest advantage of the Digital Commons platform system for me is that it allows me to focus on two things:

1. Recruiting content 2. Boosting usage

I don't have to worry about website design, engineering, maintenance, ugrades, compatibility, storage servers, software...”

Paul RoysterUniversity of Nebraska - Lincoln