York University Libraries are continuing in their effort to build a digital repository for York University. YorkSpace, which uses the DSpace open source software, is being developed to store and make accessible research and scholarly communication from the York community.
DSpace is a repository for research in digital form, which was developed as a joint project between the MIT Libraries and Hewlett Packard. The software was designed to provide a place for an institution's digital research output to be stored and accessed. With DSpace, faculty and researchers have the ability to submit their own work to be preserved and made accessible over the Internet.

DSpace includes many features necessary for long term storage and increased access to scholarly research, such as open source software components and common web standards. The software incorporates a new standard developed for exchanging descriptions or "metadata" about items stored in DSpace, which makes the content more visible on the Web.
Google is working with the OCLC Online Computer Library Center, a major bibliographic services provider, and selected institutions using the DSpace software to allow records residing in those institutions' repositories to be indexed and searchable from Google. This capability will not be restricted to Google alone, but will also be available to other search engines. Having well known search engines index the records from the repositories will give more access to university research in the so-called "deep web".

The DSpace software has the capability to organize information into "communities" and "collections" enabling distinct organizational or subject groupings to be created. There is also a built in workflow function which allows designated people to review and approve submissions to the repository.

Version 1.2 of the software was released in August 2004 and provides some enhanced features. A full text search capability across selected document types (Word, text, HTML, PDF) has been implemented along with the ability to create "sub-communities" within "communities".

For more information on the DSpace software and other institutions using it see: http://www.library.yorku.ca/Home/eResources/yorkspace.jsp, which will have a link to YorkSpace when it goes live later this fall.

Contact Merle Steeves at msteeves@yorku.ca if you would like to find out more about the YorkSpace project.

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