A growing proportion of an institution's output and assets is digital in format (eg, data sets, documents, multimedia objects). Digital repositories are becoming a critical part of an institution's information infrastructure to ensure the preservation and ongoing access to these digital objects. Over and above a mere software system, the digital repository represents the institution's responsibility for the long term stewardship of its digital assets.
APSR is running a series of workshops on "Establishing a Digital Repository Service". These workshops are for the benefit of institutions who are setting up digital repository services or thinking about such. The events will also provide an opportunity to meet and build networks with interested people in your region.
The half-day workshops will run in various locations around Australia (Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne in the first instance). Further workshops will be held in Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. Anyone interested in hosting such a workshop is invited to contact Dr Adrian Burton on 02 6125 6659.
A supplementary technical tutorial will be an optional extra. That session will go into the specifics of a particular software system (see "Optional Extra Technical Tutorial" below).
The workshops will provide a general background to digital repositories as well as a practical walk-through of a particular repository system. The workshops will also cover the essential issues involved in establishing a repository service, including:
Planning and management of a repository service
Involving your community
Criteria for choosing repository software
Spectrum of services
Sustainability guidelines and issues
Case study demonstrations
The program will start at 9.30am and finish at 12.30pm. Lunch will be provided afterwards. In Brisbane the program will commence at 11am and include lunch.
Attendees will receive an information pack including background papers.
No prior knowledge of particular repository software is required. The workshop will address many generic issues involved with establishing a repository service (only one of which is the software system). The presentations will not propose a single software solution, though it will showcase examples of repository systems in production at APSR partners.
A detailed agenda of this workshop will be available on the APSR website shortly.
The workshops are meant for the management and administrative staff of all fledgling (or potential) repository services:
investigating digital repository services (information gathering)
in the early stages of implementing digital repository services (networking with other implementers)
interested in digital repository software systems
Although the immediate context of APSR is the higher education research sector, these workshops will be beneficial to any institution that intends to develop a repository for the long term preservation and access of its digital assets.
| Location | Date | Venue | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canberra | Wednesday 3rd August, 9.30am | The Graneek Room, Level 4 JB Chifley Building (Bld 15) The Australian National University | Peter Raftos (02) 6125 1065 <demetrius@anu.edu.au> RSVP
27.07.05 |
| Sydney | Wednesday 10th August, 9.30am | Training Room 3, Fisher Library, University of Sydney | Ross Coleman 02 9351 3352 |
| Brisbane | Tuesday 16th August, 11.00am | Conference Room, Social Science & Humanities Library, St Lucia Campus, UQLD | Belinda Weaver 07 33658281 |
Brisbane |
Date to be decided | Belinda Weaver. 07 33658281 b.weaver@library.uq.edu.au Please register your interest. | |
| Melbourne | Wednesday 24th August, 9.30am | University of Melbourne | For information: Nicki
McLaurin Smith, 03 8344 4414. For bookings: Chen Chen (03)
8344 8040 |
| Adelaide | Thursday, 6th October. | Flinders University | Contact Amanda Nixon, (08) 8201-2157. |
The cost of the workshop series is completely subsidised by the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories which is funded to do outreach work in this area by the Department of Education, Science and Training as part of the Commonwealth Government's "Backing Australia's Ability - An Innovative Action Plan for the Future".
Places however are strictly limited, and all attendees must be registered, so prompt confirmation of your intention to attend is advisable.
Expressions of interest are sought for a hands-on technical session in the afternoon following the above half day events. This extra session will be a guided tutorial on installing the "DSpace in a Box" software as well as the extensions based on the Apache Cocoon framework. Participants will "bring their own box" (eg, a standard laptop machine running Redhat Linux 9.0, Fedora Core 3 or Fedora Core 4). Participants will need root access to their laptop. Attendees will need some familiarity with the basic Unix commands.
The tutorial will cover the following activities:
installation of a pre-configured DSpace system
basic administration (user and process management)
ingestion of basic digital objects
installation of Apache Cocoon
ingestion of XML objects, and presentation via the Cocoon pipeline
Participants in this tutorial will leave with a fully functional repository system to test and develop on their laptop.
If you (or someone from your institution) is interested in attending this extra session in the afternoon, please inform the contact person for your location. It is not necessary to have attended the morning session. Details on hardware and software requirements are available on request.
A detailed agenda of this tutorial is available.
