Lisa Spiro

Expanding roles for the institutional repository

Purpose – Rice University has adopted the DSpace platform for its institutional repository, but has pushed the traditional limits of how that is defined. To accommodate a wider range of scholarship that includes digitized multimedia source materials integrated with educational modules and geospatial resources, the technical infrastructure of DSpace has been enriched. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the developments and decisions required to support this range of scholarship beyond born‐digital scholarly pre‐prints and reports.Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA), a digital archive that makes use of DSpace to preserve and present images and texts, as a case study in using DSpace as both a repository and archive framework. TIMEA integrates two additional systems for presenting digital content, Connexions, which focuses on educational modules, and ArcIMS, which makes available dynamic GIS (Geographic Information Systems) maps.Findings – Al...

Enabling exploration: travelers in the middle east archive

In this paper, we describe the travelers in the Middle East archive (TIMEA), a digital archive focused on Western explorations in the Middle East between the 18th and early 20th centuries. TIMEA brings together TEI-encoded texts and digital images stored in DSpace, research and teaching materials in Connexions, and GIS maps made available online through ArcIMS. By using the functionality of three distinct systems, TIMEA enables users to more fully understand the materials, place them in context, and conduct queries. We outline the rationale for this architecture, the challenges it presents, and our approach to providing an integrated user experience

Feasibility of a primarily digital research library

This position paper explores the issues related to the feasibility of having a primarily digital research library support the teaching and research needs of a university. The Asian University for Women (AUW), a new university in Chittagong, Bangladesh, will open in September 2009. It must make a decision regarding the investment to be made in research resources to support the university. Mass digitization efforts now make it possible to consider establishing a research library that consists primarily of digital resources rather than print. There are, however, many issues that make this consideration quite complex and far from certain. In this paper we explore the issues at a preliminary level. We focus on four broad perspectives in order to begin addressing the complex interactions that must be considered in transitioning to a primarily digital research environment: technical, economic, policy and social issues. The purpose of this paper is to begin to explore a research agenda for transitioning from a model for libraries where resources are primarily print to one that is predominantly digital. Our research in this area is just beginning, so our purpose is to raise the issues rather than offer firm conclusions.