JISC

This project set up an open access digital repository at the University of York for resources in a variety of formats, including sound, archives, film and images, to complement both the University’s research publications in the White Rose Research Online repository and the digital teaching materials in the University’s Yorkshare Virtual Learning Environment.

Executive Summary

The Sound, Film, Archives Image Repository (SAFIR) project was established to aid the University of York in starting a much longer project to establish a multimedia repository and flexible centralised Digital Library infrastructure. It was a small project with clear aims to:

• Gather and examine user requirements
• Evaluate and select software based on those requirements
• Devise policies, processes and profiles to support the ingest of data and the creation of metadata
• Implement the software with some access control and basic interoperability with other systems
• Review the copyright status of resources and clear any copyright as necessary

The project approach was to devise a work plan and a set of work packages, recruit staff and to focus on key project goals. In selecting an open source software product for the Digital Library infrastructure, the project took a more developmental direction and thus some level of re-planning and flexibility have been required, including agreeing a 6-month extension to the project. The project team work closely together and also with colleagues in Computing Service, the Library and the Virtual Learning Environment team. Engagement with external users and colleagues is critical and has been achieved through an Academic Advisory Group and direct meetings with academics. A Steering Group provides strategic leadership.

The project has achieved its aim and now has a functioning implementation of the Fedora Commons software with the open source Muradora add-on in place to provide a public interface for searching, browsing and accessing objects. Two collections of image objects have been migrated into the Digital Library and a basic level of access control is in place. An extensible metadata creation tool has been developed to create rich image-specific metadata. This tool uses a number of techniques to expedite the process of describing images. A range of policies and public documents have been created to support the development of the Digital Library, including a requirements specification containing high-level model and detailed requirements; and our content model for images, a document which provides a blueprint for how we create, describe and manage images within the Digital Library, including copyright and licensing issues. Intangible outcomes include the expertise we have built and the contributions to other work across the library and repositories community.

Creating a Digital Library is challenging and time consuming, particularly when building a bespoke system as we have chosen to do at York. The project continues to need careful management to ensure users remain engaged without raising expectations, along with good communication and realistic estimates on how long development will take. The decision to follow a software development path was taken to build in-house skill and tailor to our specific needs. The success of this will only become known as we roll out our system to users and make further customisations. SAFIR is the start of our work to build a Digital Library and has provided a focus for driving the project forward. Over the coming two years we will extend the project, working closely with users to test usability and extending our content collections to incorporate a richer range of digital object types and subject disciplines.

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