JISC

The aim of the RepositoryBridge project was to investigate and implement a technical solution that allows electronic theses deposited in Welsh university repositories to be exported automatically to an archival repository hosted by the National Library of Wales.

Executive Summary

The idea of the project was conceived on the back of an agreement which dates back nearly 100 years between the National Library of Wales and the Welsh universities. The agreement allows the National Library of Wales (one of the UK copyright libraries) to store a paper copy of all higher-level or Welsh-interest theses produced in Wales. With the move towards electronic storage of theses, the project aimed to produce a system which would allow the National Library of Wales to continue with this agreement, but to collect the theses electronically.

Benefits

• Automatic rather than manual submission of theses to the National Library of Wales
• Reduced duplication of metadata creation and cataloguing
• Reduction in expensive storage space requirements
• Alignment with the principle of LOCKSS (Lots of copies keeps stuff safe)

The approach taken was to make use of the standard harvesting protocol OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) to transfer metadata between the institutional and library repository systems. This metadata includes identifiers for the content files, so these can be imported and ingested by the National Library of Wales. Work was completed in collaboration with the EThOS1 project to ensure that standards were drawn up and used (UK Electronic Theses and Dissertation – UKETD), allowing the National Library of Wales to act as a regional hub to provide all of its electronic these to the EThOS service. This collaboration also used the National Library to pilot it consortium-based submission model. The collaboration was beneficial to both projects ensuring consistent use of standards and sharing of procedures and policies.

Software modules

• Export of metadata from repositories running DSpace2 via OAI-PMH
• Export of metadata from repositories running GNU eprints3 via OAI-PMH
• Ingest of exported metadata and of content into Fedora4 running at the National Library of Wales
• Exposure of UKETD metadata from Fedora
• A web-based system to allow institutions to manage which parts of their repositories are harvested

An additional requirement of the metadata exported from Welsh institutions for the National Library was they preferred the data to be encoded using METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) with metadata encoding using MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) rather than Dublin Core as used by EThOS. The result was that the metadata exported from the Welsh institutions to the National Library of Wales was transmitted using METS with MODS, but also included a duplicate of the metadata encoded in Dublin Core. This method was highlighted by the Linking UK Repositories report as an innovative way of using METS to deliver metadata to multiple systems. The final version of the software is now completed and installed at the National Library of Wales, the University of Wales Aberystwyth and the University of Wales Swansea. The project has a close working relationship with the remaining higher education institutions within Wales and will continue to work with them to work towards harvesting their electronic theses.

Report available electronically only. Read final report below.