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Shared and not shared : Providing repository services on a national level

This presentation explores shared services in the context of a national service provider from Finland, discussing the challenges and advantages of shared repository services and highlighting the case of Finland as a country that embraces sharing and collaboration.

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Shared and not shared : Providing repository services on a national level

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  1. Shared and notshared: Providingrepositoryservices on a national level OpenRepositories 2012 / July 10, 2012 Jyrki Ilva (jyrki.ilva@helsinki.fi) http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe201207066182

  2. Thispresentationdealswithsharedservices in a veryconcreteform, from the point of view of a national serviceproviderfrom a smallNorthernEuropean country…

  3. FINLAND • A country of 5 millionpeople • With a relativelyuniformhighereducationsector • With a governmentcommitted to buildingcost-efficient national infrastructures (withvaryingdegrees of success)

  4. The National Libraryof Finland • An independentinstitutewithin the University of Helsinki • Amongmanyotherthings, the National Library is also an importantserviceprovider for the wholeFinnishlibrarynetwork • Withabout 70 of itsemployeesworking on thingslikeintegratedlibrarysystems, discoveryportals and acquisition of e-materials • Of course, notforgettingrepositories…

  5. Repositories in Finland • Currentlythereare 48 Finnishorganizationswith an institutionalrepository • Universities, universities of appliedsciences (polytechnics), stateresearchinstitutes, governmentagencies, scholarlysocieties • On the otherhand, thereareonly 10 publicrepositoryinstances • The National Library of Finland runsfourpublicDSpaceinstances for 36 customerorganizations (notcounting the National Libraryitself) • Six of the biggerresearchuniversitieshavetheirownlocally-runDSpace/Fedorainstances, mostly for theirownstuff

  6. Finnishrepositories and theircontent, June 2012 (items)

  7. The ”marketshare” of the National Library as a repositoryserviceprovider Of organizationswith a repository (organizations) Of repositorycontent (OA full-textitems)

  8. Sharedrepositoryservices in general: whyaren’ttheremore of them? • The original vision: institutionalrepositoriesarebuilt on a locallevel and harvested via OAI-PMH to searchenginesspecializing on scholarlycontent • ”Doityourself”-orientedideology: anyonecan set up a repositoryinstance, everyorganizationshouldhaveone • As a resultwehave a largeglobalnetwork of mostlyseparately-hostedrepository software instances (= a lot of duplication of work) • Some of the repositoriesarepoorlyresourced, somehavelittlecontent • Doesthisalwaysmakesense? • The use of sharedorhostedserviceswouldbe in manycasesworthconsideration, and mightprovidesignificantadvantages (includingcostsavings, better-resourcedservices)

  9. Is Finland a special case? • Thereseems to bemuchmoresharinggoing on than in manyothercountries • Finnishuniversitylibrarieshave a long tradition of buildingsharedservices • As the main funder of universities, Ministry of Culture and Educationhasstronglysupported the creation of centralized national infrastructures • Repositoriesareone of the centralizedservicesprovidedby the National Library • On the otherhand, althoughwehave the tradition to build on, wedon’thavepermanentcentralfunding for repositoryservices • Therehasbeenonlyrelativelysmall, temporaryproject money; at the moment the funding for repositoryservicescomesdirectlyfrom the customerorganizations

  10. National repositoryservices: historicalbackground • Many of the Finnishrepositoriesstarted out publishing theses and serialpublications (late 90s/early 00s) • The concept of institutionalrepositorywasintroducedonly a fewyearslater • The National Library and the idea of a ”digitalobject management system” as an integralpart of a new systemarchitecture for the Finnishlibrarynetwork (2003) • The firstattempt to builditwas made with a proprietary software platform • Itdidn´twork out as hadbeenplanned • Evaluation of opensourcerepository software at the National Library (2006) • DSpacechosen (quickimplementation, suitability for multi-institutionaluse)

  11. Thereweresomechallengesearly on • Originally the idea was to collectall of the stuff and all of the organizations into one big DSpaceinstance: Doria (opened in February 2007) • The new servicewasnot an instantsuccess • Westarted out withabouttencustomers, bothlarge and small, whichwouldn’thavebeenenough to sustain the service • Manyuniversitieschose to upgrade the repositoriestheyalreadyhad • Some of the localrepositorymanagerscriticized the creation of a national service • National repositoryservicesmayhavebeenperceived as a threat to localplans • The advantages of the sharedorhostedmodelsometimeshavemoreappeal to funders and libraryleadersthan to repositorymanagers

  12. Thenwegotlucky... • In late 2007 the Rectors’ Conference for FinnishUniversities of Applied Sciences got a two-yearfunding for Theseus • The National Librarywaschosen to be the serviceprovider • The new servicewasadopted in all 25 organizationsby 2010 • CulturalMaterialsDepositing and Preservation Act (2008) gave the National Library new duties in webarchiving and long-termpreservation • Funding for a new serverinfrastructure; a chance to rebuild the repositoryservices in a new environment (and doitright!) • Standardizedvirtualservers; SVN version control of the DSpacecode (2010)

  13. Ourcurrentservicemodel(s) • The work is dividedbetween the customerorganizations and National Library • The curation of publications and collections is donelocally (=most of the work) • The National Library is responsible for the development and maintenance of the technicalplatform • The customersmayuseeitherone of the multi-institutionalrepositoryinstancesortheirownDSpaceinstancehostedby the National Library • The technicalmaintenance of allinstances is highlycentralized • However, thereare a lot of differences in the processes and the level of standardization

  14. 1. Theseus: a multi-institutionalrepositoryinstancewithstandardizedprocesses • http://publications.theseus.fi • The common repository for all of the 25 universities of appliedsciences • Growingfast, 13.000+ new publicationssubmittedbystudentseachyear • Allorganizationsuse the sametools, formats and processes, and have the sameuniformappearance

  15. Theseus: a multi-institutionalrepositoryinstancewithstandardizedprocesses • Essentially a big groupeffort, with 200+ librarians and administratorsparticipating in 25 organizations • Due to standardization of processes, the technicalmaintenance of the servicerequiresrelativelylittlededicatedwork • The cost of managing 25 repositoriesseparately in eachorganizationwouldbeseveraltimeshigher

  16. 2. Doria: a multi-institutionalrepositoryinstancewithdiverseprocesses • http://www.doria.fi • The original idea (in 2006) was to create a neutraltechnicalplatformthatanyorganizationcouldeasilyadopt • All of the customerorganizationshavetheirowncommunities • The organizationsaregivenrelativelyfreehands in managingtheircommunities

  17. Doria: a multi-institutionalrepositoryinstancewithdiverseprocesses • Manydifferentsubmissionprocesses, usingeitherbuilt-inorexternalsubmissiontools • Many of the communitieshavetheirownvisualthemes and metadata formats • Therearedownsides to this • The quality of metadata is notuniform • Customizedcommunity-leveluserinterfacesmayappearconfusing to endusers

  18. Doria: a multi-institutionalrepositoryinstancewithdiverseprocesses • Doria alsocontains a number of collectionsfromone of ourmajorcustomers, the National Libraryitself

  19. 3. Separaterepositoryinstances for individualcustomerorganizations • Someorganizationsprefer to havetheirownhostedinstance • Currentlyeasy to provide, for a smallextracost • Julkari, http://www.julkari.fi (National Institute for Health and Welfare, maybeexpanded to includeotherrelatedorganizations) • TamPub, http://tampub.uta.fi (University of Tampere, replacesthreepreviouslocally-runrepositories)

  20. How to sellrepositoryservices? • There is a strongpracticalneed in manyorganizations for an affordablesystemthatcanbeused for the storing and dissemination of digitalpublications • Long-termaccess and persistentaddresseshavebeengoodsellingpoints • Youshouldbeableintegrate the repositorywith the othersystems and processes of the organization • While the currentrepository software platformshavetheirlimitations, theyaresuitable for the management of severalkindsdigitalcontent • Much of the discourse on repositorieshasconcentrated on oneveryspecificuse case, green OA • However, thereareotherusecasesthatare just as legitimate (ifdoneproperly)

  21. Doesitcostsomething? Yes, itdoes! • Wearenottrying to make a profit, butwestillhave to make the endsmeet • Establishing a coherentpricingscheme for allcustomershasnotbeeneasy • Some of the earlydeals made whilewestillhadprojectfunding (and werehoping for more) werequitegenerous • Wearetrying to keep the basicservicesaffordable • Many of the customersarerelativelysmall and doquitewellwith the basicrepositoryfunctionalities, withminimalcustomization • The National Librarycanalsoprovideconsulting and otherservices (conversions, extensivecustomization, technicalinterfaces to othersystems, etc.) • Thesecostmore, butwe’retrying to comeupwithsolutionsthatbenefitothercustomers as well

  22. Growth of the customer-base: new challenges • Negotiatingcontractsseparatelywitheachcustomeroftentime-consuming • Howto balancecustomerprojectswith the development of the basicinfrastructure? • Customerprojectsbring in money, buttheyalsotakeup a lot of developertime • The infrastructure is gettingmorecomplicatedwitheach new project • Need for new and improvedservices • The new, customizableexternalingest-system (long overdue) • Darkarchiving on a national level? Connections to long-termpreservation? • Standardizedinterfaces to othersystems/processes (librarycatalog, CRIS, etc.)

  23. Shared and notshared: towards common goals • Some of the Finnishuniversitiesaregoing to hosttheirownrepositorieseven in the future • Co-operationbetweenrepositorieswouldbenefit us all, both in technicaldevelopment and policyissues • There’s a lot of interest in national co-operation, butwearestilllooking for betterways to makeitwork • Contributions to the international community?

  24. Measures of success for repositories? • There is a repository • Repository is filledwithmeaningfulcontent • The content is beingdisseminated (downloadedbyusers) Source: http://publications.theseus.fi/simplestats • The contenthassomekind of scientificorculturalimpact • By storing and disseminating the content the repositoryhas an effect on the waywepublish and accessthesematerials

  25. Contenttypes in eachFinnishrepository, June 2012 (OA full-textitems)

  26. Wearenotveryfaryet Types of OA full-textcontent in all of the Finnishrepositories in June, 2012 (items): • Self-archiving (”green OA”) hasbeenimportant in creatingpublicity and gettingfunding for the repositories, butevenwithfourinstitutionalmandates in effect, the actualnumber of submittedarticleshasgrownonlyslowly • On the otherhand, the openaccesspublication of theses and dissertations is clearly a successstory and haschanged the wayscholarly publishing works in Finland

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