Evviva Weinraub
Associate University Librarian for Collections & Technologies
Northwestern University
Kim Pham
Information Technologies Librarian
University of Denver
Jack Maness
Associate Dean
University of Denver
A Vertical Integration Model to Manage Digital Institutional Resources (Pham, Maness) Following COAR’s Next Generation Repositories guiding principles, the technology space of our ecosystem to manage digital institutional content resources isn’t relegated to one department on campus – rather, it is placed in the hands of those with the best skills and expertise to provide that support. The infrastructure, which is comprised of an archival catalog (Archivespace), digital collections (Node.js + ElasticSearch), preservation storage (ArchivesDirect), and a streaming server (Kaltura) is independently but collaboratively managed across IT, library departments and vendors, resulting in a vertically integrated hybrid architecture. The coordinated effort of digital curation activities still allows each group to focus on the service they have the most vested interest in providing. We will talk about the different management and development practices for each system, and how we developed our partnership to provide digital collections as a service.
Next Gen-Repository: How Breaking up Makes Getting Back Together Even Easier! (Weinraub) Over the last 12 months, Northwestern University Libraries’ Repository and Digital Curation department re-envisioned and rebuilt its repository architecture to be cloud-first, scalable, and services based. Northwestern University is a Samvera Partner and contributes heavily to the open source repository community and its products, including the A/V repository solution, Avalon, and the IR solution, Hyrax. The goal of Northwestern’s new repository initiative was to develop a flexible system with loosely coupled dependencies that would allow Northwestern to pivot quickly when new technologies or more efficient options, either in monthly expenditure or labor, become available. The newly decoupled architecture allows Northwestern to grow based on content needs and respond to changing requirements rapidly. The process of moving to a cloud-first architecture has required the team as a whole to rethink assumptions including 1. how traditional roles like system administrators and developers need to change and work together in new ways; 2. how many repository solutions are built “monolithically,” making horizontal scaling in the cloud difficult; 3. how infinite scalability allows for flexibility and experimentation which in turn changes jobs. The transition as a whole has been successful. The digital collections, institutional repository, and Avalon instance are cloud-based and continue to evolve. During the next phase of development, we are investigating simplifying our infrastructure further to focus on core needs. This presentation will focus on how we got here and how we see the system evolving in the near future.
Digital collections: https://specialcollections.du.edu
Proposal with drawings: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i2sMAO20-wh2_2v_a5U2QITVkgwBNY5Be3dbsRVGlYA/edit?usp=sharing
Presentation (Weinraub)