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A Foundation for Digital Repositories
An interview with Michele Kimpton, executive director of the newly formed DSpace Foundation
9/26/2007
It seems like scholarly communications are taking place in an increasing variety of digital contexts. How will DSpace keep up as digital formats change and related platforms evolve?
There are many applications that DSpace interfaces with -- such as learning environments or thesis publications. We want to make sure that DSpace, which is really more of a repository for saving content, can talk to these applications as they change, and that it can handle new types of formats and objects that are being put into the repository for access. In order to do that, we build stable and standard application interfaces (APIs) into the DSpace platform.
So, as various applications evolve, so does DSpace through open APIs. And the other way it evolves is through open source. You have a large pool of developers from all different backgrounds working on different uses of DSpace, and they can write the code to keep DSpace updated for their particular needs. The code then is donated to the community code pool so that anybody with a related need can use it.
How do you manage all that development?
You don't! There's very light management infrastructure, because the real beauty of the project is that you have developers from all over the world that are making their own decisions on how they want to contribute to and implement the code. What the foundation will provide -- and the DSpace Foundation is new, just recently put in place -- is a technology roadmap that is embraced by the community.
Why did MIT and HP take the step to create the DSpace Foundation as an independent organization instead of just letting DSpace continue as a joint project?
As the community became very large, MIT and HP wanted to provide the level of support that was needed -- and they had been doing that somewhat ad hoc up to that point. Also, with a foundation there would be an independent organization that would provide focus for the community. If the organization were to continue as a part of HP or MIT, that could potentially skew (or be perceived to skew) to the benefits of MIT or HP, the objectives that the community would want to achieve.
Make no mistake, MIT and HP have put in the effort and the funding to get this nonprofit off the ground, and they are committed to do that for as long as it takes. But they wanted to make sure that the community would be provided an objective venue, as opposed to one of them taking the lead.
You're at the beginning of your tenure as director of the DSpace Foundation, and the foundation is in its beginnings, too. Do you have a sense of a timeline for the impact of this work?
Sometimes when we are fully immersed in all this we forget that the days are still young. Large-scale digital archiving, preservation and access, and creating digital libraries are really at the forefront now, so I expect that there will be flurries of activity. But it's important to remember that we are at the leading edge now. And we should embrace it, because this is the time when we can set the direction for the next generation.
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