DuraSpace has released DSpace 1.6.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Community-requested features in the new release include an enhanced statistics package which provides more information about how your repository is being used, an embargo facility so items can be kept dark for a period of time, and a batch metadata editing tool which can be used to change, add, find/replace metadata as well as facilitate mass moves, re-order values or add new items in bulk. And there’s more such as authority control which contains an integration with the Sherpa Romeo Service for publisher names, as well as the Library of Congress Nameservice. Other new features include:

• Delegated administration
• OpenSearch
• Command launcher
• OAI-PMH harvesting of items from remote repositories
• Configurable OAI-PMH dublin core output
• Move item functionality in XMLUI
• If-Modified-Since / Last-Modified header support in XMLUI
• Change to logging behaviour to ensure better log retention and management
• Update to the latest handle server library
• Ability to perform batch imports and exports from zip files of items
• New test scripts to test database and email settings
• Ability to set legal jurisdiction in creative commons licensing

Presentations from the recent Repositories and the Cloud meeting, which was sponsored by Eduserv and JISC, and are now available.

Presentations included "Cloud-Based Projects at Belfast e-Science Centre," "Cloud Services for Repositories", "DuraCloud—Open Technologies and Services for Managing Durable Data in the Cloud," and "EPrints and the Cloud."

Read more about it at "Slides and Observations from “Repositories in the Cloud” London."

JISC has released the Digital Repository infoKit, which was created in association with the Repository Support Project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Digital Repository infoKit is a practical 'how to' guide to setting up and running digital repositories. The kit contains information on a broad range of topics running from the initial idea of a digital repository and the planning process, via detailed sections on repository set up and promotion, through to the maintenance and ongoing management of the repository. The main focus is on institutional repositories and the kit reflects current repository community best practice. This resource has been written for repository administrators. It assumes no prior knowledge of repository matters and, more importantly, assumes no prior technical knowledge. The kit can be used by anyone who needs an introduction to any of the topics covered.

Eric Jansson has self-archived "DSpace Manakin UI: Case Study of Value and Costs" in the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education's repository.

Here's an excerpt from:

Our experience in this project pointed towards three main ideas:

• Many smaller institutions are staffed sufficiently to use the Manakin technology for branding and interface tweaking, as they can leverage web development skills, providing that system administration support for maintaining a development DSpace is available.
• Development of advanced Manakin themes (defined as development that significantly alters, removes, or rearranges interface components, or that integrates new functionality into the interfaces) is comparable to web-application development in terms of complexity. As such, more advanced development is only likely to succeed for institutions whose staffing includes a dedicated expert in web application development, and one who is familiar with XML technologies (i.e. XML, XPath, XSL), and possibly AJAX, and Javascript.
• Smaller institutions with more advanced goals should consider working together and using outside expertise in theme development. Outside expertise could be supplied through partnering with other institutions pursuing Manakin development projects or through vendors.

Read more about it at "Using Manakin to Expand the Capabilities of DSpace Repositories."

Stuart Lewis has released EasyDeposit, a toolkit for creating SWORD deposit interfaces.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

EasyDeposit allows you to create customised SWORD deposit interfaces by configuring a set of 'steps'. A typical flow of steps may be: login, select a repository, enter some metadata, upload a file, verify the information is correct, perform the deposit, send a confirmation email. Alternatively a deposit flow may just require a file to be uploaded and a title entered. A configuration file is used to list the steps you require.

EasyDeposit makes use of the CodeIgniter MVC PHP framework. This means each 'step' is made up of two files: a 'controller' which looks after the validation and processing of any data entered, and a 'view' which controls the web page that a user sees. This separation of concerns makes it easy for web programmers to edit the controllers, and web designers to tinker with the look and feel of the interface in the views.

OCLC has made basic and advanced OAIster search interfaces available. Access is free.

OAIster is a database of over 23 million records from OAI-PMH-compliant digital repositories, which was originally developed by the University of Michigan Library. Initially, OCLC made OAIster available only as part of WorldCat and as a FirstSearch database (these access points remain). (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)

Read more about it at "OCLC Makes OAIster Records Available through WorldCat.org," "OCLC makes OAIster Records Available through WorldCat.org to Ensure Long-Term Public Access to Digital Resources," and "University of Michigan and OCLC Form Partnership to Ensure Long-Term Access to OAIster Database."

The Cybermetrics Lab of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientóficas has released The Ranking Web of World Repositories (January 2010 edition).

Here's an excerpt:

As in previous edition we provide two global Rankings. One that covers all repositories (Top400) and another that focuses only on Institutional Repositories (Top 400 Institutional). We are considering to include in future editions portals of journals and papers (super repositories).

The composite index (World Ranking) is computed combining normalized values instead of ranks. The visibility is calculated giving extra importance to the external inlinks not coming from generic domains (.com, .org, .net). The figures for rich files (pdf, doc, ppt, ps, and new for this edition, xls) are combined and not treated individually.

Read more about it at "Ranking Web of World Repositories ."

Presentations from the DRF International Conference 2009: Open Access Repositories Now and in the Future—From the Global and Asia-Pacific Points of View are now available. The Digital Repository Federation is "a federation consisting of 87 universities and research institutes (as of February 2009), which aims to promote Open Access and Institutional Repository in Japan."

Here's a quick selection of presentations:

• Before and after DRF Initiative: A Cluster of Institutional Repository Programs beyond the Traditional Role of the Library, Hideki Uchijima (Kanazawa University)
• Future Perspectives of Institutional Repositories in Taiwan, Simon C. Lin, Ya-Ning Chen (Academia Sinica)
• Innovation in Scholarly Communication in High-Energy Physics:Repositories and Open Access, Salvatore Mele (CERN)
• Suggestions for Asian/Australasian Regional Cooperation based on a Critical Evaluation of Collaboration and Standardisation across Australian Institutional Repositories, Peter Sefton (University of Southern Queensland)
• A Retrospective of NII Projects on New Perspectives in CSI, Jun Adachi (National Institute of Informatics)

The Center for Research Libraries has certified Portico as a trustworthy digital repository.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This month the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) announced the completion of an audit of the Portico digital repository and its certification as a trustworthy digital repository. Portico is the first digital preservation service to undergo this independent audit and the only service to be certified at this time.. . .

The nine-month audit process was an extremely positive and valuable one for Portico. It confirmed that the majority of our practices conform to the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification Checklist (TRAC) and other metrics developed by CRL through its analyses of digital repositories. It also identified for us several areas for continued improvement as well as ways in which we can enhance the service for CRL member libraries as well as others. We look forward to continuing to report to CRL on these issues in the years ahead to ensure we continue to meet certification requirements and the expectations of CRL libraries, our other partner libraries, and our participating publishers.

We invite you to review the background information about CRL's Certification and Assessment of Digital Repositories Program (http://www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/digital-archives/certification-and-assessment-digital-repositories) as well as the public audit report on Portico published by the CRL Certification Advisory Panel (http://www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/digital-archives/certification-and-assessment-digital-repositories/portico).

The Cornell University Library has established a collaborative business model for the arXiv repository.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

arXiv will remain free for readers and submitters, but the Library has established a voluntary, collaborative business model to engage institutions that benefit most from arXiv.

"Keeping an open-access resource like arXiv sustainable means not only covering its costs, but also continuing to enhance its value, and that kind of financial commitment is beyond a single institution's resources," said Oya Rieger, Associate University Librarian for Information Technologies. "If a case can be made for any repository being community-supported, arXiv has to be at the top of the list."

The 200 institutions that use arXiv most heavily account for more than 75 percent of institutional downloads. Cornell is asking these institutions for financial support in the form of annual contributions, and most of the top 25 have already committed to helping arXiv.

Institutions that have already pledged support include:

• California Institute of Technology
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Cambridge (UK)
• CERN – European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland)
• CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)
• Columbia University
• DESY – Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Germany)
• Durham University (UK)
• ETH Zurich – Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Switzerland)
• Fermilab
• Harvard University
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Imperial College London (UK)
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Max Planck Society (Germany)
• University of Michigan
• University of Oxford (UK)
• University of Pennsylvania
• Princeton University
• SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
• Texas A&M University . . .

The proposed funding model is viewed as a short-term strategy, and the Library is actively seeking input on a long-term solution. Currently, Cornell University Library supports the operating costs of arXiv, which are comparable to the costs of the university's collection budget for physics and astronomy. As one of the most influential innovations in scholarly communications since the advent of the Internet, arXiv's original dissemination model represented the first significant means to provide expedited access to scientific research well ahead of formal publication.