Here at the Duke University Libraries we recently hosted a series of workshops that were part of a larger Research Symposium on campus.  It was an opportunity for various campus agencies to talk about all of the evolving and innovative ways that they are planning for and accommodating research data.  A few of my colleagues and I were asked to present on the new Research Data program that we’re rolling out in collaboration with the Duke Digital Repository, and we were happy to oblige!

I was asked to speak directly about the various software development initiatives that we have underway with the Duke Digital Repository.  Since we’re in the midst of rolling out a brand new program area, we’ve got a lot of things cooking!

When I started planning for the conversation I initially thought I would talk a lot about our Fedora/Hydra stack, and the various inter-related systems that we’re planning to integrate into our repository eco-system.  But what resulted from that was a lot of technical terms, and open-source software project names that didn’t mean a whole lot to anyone; especially those not embedded in the work.  As a result, I took a step back and decided to focus at a higher level.  I wanted to present to our faculty that we were implementing a series of software solutions that would meet their needs for accommodation of their data.  This had me revisiting the age-old question: What is our Repository?  And for the purposes of this conversation, it boiled down to this:

And this:

It is a highly complex, often mind-boggling set of software components, that are wrangled and tamed by a highly talented team with a diversity of skills and experience, all for the purposes of supporting Preservation, Curation, and Access of digital materials.

Those are our tenets or objectives.  They are the principles that guide out work.  Let’s dig in a bit on each.

Our first objection is Preservation.  We want our researchers to feel 100% confident that when they give us their data, that we are preserving the integrity, longevity, and persistence of their data.

Our second objective is to support Curation.  We aim to do that by providing software solutions that facilitate management and description of file sets, and logical arrangement of complex data sets.  This piece is critically important because the data cannot be optimized without solid description and modeling that informs on its purpose, intended use, and to facilitate discovery of the materials for use.

Finally our work, our software, aims to facilitate discovery & access.  We do this by architecture thoughtful solutions that optimize metadata and modeling, we build out features that enhance the consumption and usability of different format types, we tweak, refine and optimize our code to enhance performance and user experience.

The repository is a complex beast.  It’s a software stack, and an eco-system of components.  It’s Fedora.  It’s Hydra.  It’s a whole lot of other project names that are equally attractive and mystifying.  At it’s core though, it’s a software initiative- one that seeks to serve up an eco-system of components with optimal functionality that meet the needs and desires of our programmatic stakeholders- our University.

Preservation, Curation, & Access are the heart of it.

Folks,

We have been hard at work architecting a robust Repository program for our Duke University community.  And while doing this, we’re in the midst of shoring things up architecturally on the back end.  You may be asking yourself:  Why all the fuss?  What’s the big deal?

Well, part of the fuss is that it’s high time to move beyond the idea that our repository is a platform.  We’d much prefer that our repository be know as a program.  A suite of valuable services that serve the needs of our campus community.  The repository will always be a platform.  In fact, it will be a rock-solid preservation platform- a space to park your valuable digital assets and feel 100% confident that the Libraries will steward those materials for the long haul.  But the repository is much more than a platform; it’s a suite of service goodness that we hope to market and promote!

Secondly, it’s because we’ve got some new and exciting developments happening in Repository-land, specifically in the realm of data management.  To start with, the Provost graciously appointed four new positions to serve the data needs of the University, and those new positions will sit in the Libraries.  We have two Senior Research Specialists and two Content Analysts joining our ranks in early January.  These positions will be solely dedicated to the refinement of data curation processes, liaising with faculty on data management best practice, assisting researchers with the curation and deposit of research data, and acquiring persistent access to said data.  Pretty cool stuff!

So in preparation for this, we’ve had a few things cooking.  To begin with, we are re-designing our Duke Digital Repository homepage.  We will highlight three service areas:

• Duke Scholarship: This area will feature the research, scholarship and activities of Duke faculty members and academic staff.  It will also highlight services in support of open access, copyright support, digital publishing, and more.
• Research Data:  This area will be dedicated to the fruits of Duke Scholarship, and will be an area that features research data and data sets.  It will highlight services in support of data curation, data management, data deposit, data citation, and more.
• Library Collections: This area will focus on digital collections that are owned or stewarded specifically by the Duke University Libraries.  This includes digitized special collections, University Archives material, born digital materials, and more.

For each of these areas we’ve focused on defining a base collections policy for each, and are in the process of refining our service models, and shoring up policy that will drive preservation and digital asset management of these materials.

So now that I’ve got you all worked up about these new developments, you may be asking, ‘When can I know more?!’  You can expect to see and hear more about these developments (and our newly redesigned website) just after the New Year.  In fact, you can likely expect another Bitstreams Repository post around that time with more updates on our progress, a preview of our site, and perhaps a profile or two of the new staff joining our efforts!

Until then, stay tuned, press ‘Save’, and call us if you’re looking for a better, more persistent, more authoritative approach to saving the fruits of your digital labor!  (Or contact us)

We’ve been talking a lot about the Repository of late, so I thought it might be time to come full circle and make sure we’re all on the same page here…. What exactly is a Repository?

A Repository is essentially a digital shelf.  A really, really smart shelf!

It’s the place to safely and securely store digital assets of a wide variety of types for preservation, discovery, and use, though not all materials in the repository may be discoverable or accessible by everyone.  So, it’s like a shelf.  Except that this shelf is designed to help us preserve these materials and try to ensure they’ll be usable for decades.  

This shelf tells us if the materials on it have changed in any way.  They tell us when the materials don’t conform to the format specification that describes exactly how a file format is to be represented.  These shelves have very specific permissions, a well thought out backup procedure to several corners of the country, a built-in versioning system to allow us to migrate endangered or extinct formats to new, shiny formats, and a bunch of other neat stuff.

The repository is the manifestation of a conviction about the importance of an enduring scholarly record and open and free access to Duke scholarship.  It is where we do our best to carve our knowledge in stone for future generations.  

Why? is perhaps the most important question of all.  There are several approaches to Why?  National funding agencies (NIH, NSF, NEH, etc) recognize that science is precariously balanced on shoddy data management practices and increasingly require researchers to deposit their data with a reputable repository.  Scholars would like to preserve their work, make it accessible to everyone (not just those who can afford outrageously priced journal subscriptions), and want to increase the reach and impact of their work by providing stable and citable DOIs.  

Students want to be able to cite their own thesis, dissertations, and capstone papers and to have others discover and cite them.  The Library wants to safeguard its investment in digitization of Special Collections.  Archives needs a place to securely store university records.

A Repository, specifically our Duke Digital Repository, is the place to preserve our valuable scholarly output for many years to come.  It ensures disaster recovery, facilitates access to knowledge, and connects you with an ecosystem of knowledge.

Pretty cool, huh?!