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The Digital Assets Repository (DAR) is an Institutional Repository developed at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to manage the full lifecycle of a digital asset: its creation and ingestion, its metadata management, storage and archival in addition to the necessary mechanisms for publishing and dissemination. DAR was designed with a focus on integrating DAR with different sources of digital objects and metadata in addition to integration with applications built on top of the repository. As a modern repository, the system architecture demonstrates a modular design relying on components that are best of the breed, a flexible content model for digital objects based on current standards and heavily relying on RDF triples to define relations. In this paper we will demonstrate the building blocks of DAR as an example of a modern repository, discussing how the system addresses the challenges that face an institution in consolidating its assets and a focus on solving scalability issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repositories used to be fairly monolithic systems, with a single object store, a tailored content model, and a dedicated application on top. First steps for searching across repositories (e.g. Z39.50, first drafted in 1988; OAI-PMH for content aggregation, first released 2001) are an exception to this. However, we are still far away from an "open repository environment", in which repositories interact on all levels with other agents (e.g. other repositories, added-value services, registries). This paper creates a more fine-grained view on repository federation and analyses existing approaches by decomposing them into a physical, a logical, and a conceptual layer for both the object and the system. Among these attributes, the most evident gap pertains to interaction "patterns" between agents. In particular, the notification pattern is more immediate and directed than existing query and harvesting mechanisms, enabling new federation scenarios and laying the grounds for open repository environments. Prototypes of the concepts presented here are being implemented in the scope of the project Dariah, which establishes an e-Infrastructure for the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Texas Digital Library (TDL) is a cooperative initiative of Texas universities. One of TDL's core services is a federated collection of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) from its member schools. As this collection grew, the need for tools to manage the content exchange from the local to the federated repository became evident. This paper presents our experiences in adding harvesting support to the DSpace repository platform using the ORE and PMH protocols from the Open Archives Initiative. We describe our use case for a statewide ETD repository and the mapping of the OAI-ORE data model to the DSpace architecture. We discuss our implementation that adds both dissemination and harvesting functionality to the repository. We conclude by discussing the architectural flexibility added to the TDL repository through this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and discusses ongoing work aiming at affordable disclosure of real-world spoken heritage archives in general, and in particular of a collection of recorded interviews with Dutch survivors of World War II concentration camp Buchenwald. Given such collections, we at least want to provide search at different levels and a flexible way of presenting results. Strategies for automatic annotation based on speech recognition -- supporting e.g., within-document search--are outlined and discussed with respect to the Buchenwald interview collection. In addition, usability aspects of the spoken word search are discussed on the basis of our experiences with the online Buchenwald web portal. It is concluded that, although user feedback is generally fairly positive, automatic annotation performance is not yet satisfactory, and requires additional research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework that enables flexible content reuse. Unlike the usual practice where document components, such as images, definitions, text fragments, tables or diagrams, are assembled manually through copy-and-paste, the framework enables on-the-fly access and reuse. Retrieval of relevant components is enabled by automatic decomposition of legacy documents and storage of individual components, enriched with metadata. Furthermore, the automatic assembly of these components in mainstream authoring tools is supported. The paper describes the framework and its current support for re-assembling PowerPoint, Wikipedia and SCORM components in authoring tools. In addition, an evaluation is presented that aims to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of such content reuse for presentations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes using OAI-ORE as the basis for a new method to represent and manage the description of archival collections. This strategy adapts traditional archival description methods for the contemporary reality of digital collections and takes advantage of the power of OAI-ORE to allow for a multitude of non-linear relationships, providing richer and more powerful access and description. A schema for representing finding aids in OAI-ORE would facilitate more sophisticated methods for modeling archival collection descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the collaboration between the Perseus Project and the Digital Collection and Archives (DCA) at Tufts University in moving the collections of the Perseus Project into the DCA's Fedora based repository as well as a listing of potential services necessary to support a successful institutional repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]