USFSP’s Digital Archive is live and can be found at: http://dspace.nelson.usf.edu/
The archive was implemented in March 2011 by the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library on behalf of the faculty, students, administration, and staff of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Dean Carol Hixson has established two similar archives previously at the University of Oregon https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/ and the University of Regina http://dspace.cc.uregina.ca/dspace/
USFSP’s archive uses the DSpace open source software and is founded on the principles of open access, although some content in it will be restricted only to an authorized group of users.
A faculty advisory council consisting of representatives from each of the Colleges is helping the Library develop appropriate policies for the use and maintenance of the archive. The Library’s development team consists of Dean Hixson, Berrie Watson, Jim Schnur, and Tina Neville.
Please check back frequently for updates and new information. If you have any questions or would like to set up a collection for yourself or your unit in the archive, please contact the Dean of the Library, Carol Hixson, at hixson@mail.usf.edu or send a message to digcol@nelson.usf.edu
DSpace open source software enables open sharing of content that spans organizations, continents and time. DSpace has over 700 organizations that are currently using the DSpace software in a production or project environment. The most common use is by research libraries as an institutional archive, however there are many organizations using the software to host and manage subject based repositories, dataset repositories or media based repositories. The software supports the archiving of any type of file.
Because the software uses international standards that support rapid computer indexing of content, materials in a DSpace archive can be easily discovered by anyone anywhere who has access to a web search engine like Google.
An institutionally based digital archive (sometimes referred to as an Institutional Repository or IR) is a mechanism to capture, preserve and allow controlled access to the intellectual output of a single or multi-group community. There are several advantages to hosting our own archive for document sharing:
- Improve access to scholarly and other materials
- Preserve materials
- Make connections to other resources
- Highlight individual achievement
- Increase collaboration
- Promote research and scholarship
- Facilitate scholarly communication
- Reduce demand on university computer storage as files can be stored once and linked to anywhere
- Increase institutional visibility
Statistics can demonstrate the effectiveness of increased accessibility to materials, and provide valuable feedback to content owners. USFSP's archive tracks usage against individual items submitted to the archive, providing another mechanism for faculty to demonstrate the significance of their research, as shown in the example below:
Resource Links to Learn More About DSpace
Search the USFSP Archive simultaneously with other Institutional Repositories through OpenDOAR.org
http://www.opendoar.org/search.php
The DSpace Website:
http://www.dspace.org
University of Regina’s instance of DSpace:
http://dspace.cc.uregina.ca/dspace/
University of Oregon’s instance of DSpace:
https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/
Project Romeo for checking publishers’ attitudes on open access posting:
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
Dean Hixson's personal collections:
- http://dspace.nelson.usf.edu/xmlui/handle/10806/8
- http://dspace.cc.uregina.ca/dspace/handle/10294/17
- https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/990
Among Dean Hixson’s work is the presentation A Digital Archive for USFSP and You