LCoNZ with Datacom

1
LCoNZ with Datacom

• Proposal to
• Establish a centre of excellence
• in the management of
• New Zealand digital collections

2
LCoNZ

• closely held private company
• incorporated under the Companies Act 1993
• registered with not-for-profit charitable status.
• four shareholders are
• Auckland University of Technology
• University of Waikato
• Victoria University of Wellington
• University of Otago

3
LCoNZ and Datacom

• LCoNZ business objectives relate to
• ILMS - the integrated library management system
• Suite of software required to access and manage
  licensed electronic resources, provide federated
  searching and deep linking
• Storage, management and access to locally created
  digital objects
• LCoNZ and Datacom have demonstrated track record
  in achieving the first two in a collaborative
  environment
• Now focussing on the third

4
Project summary

• Use LCoNZ collaborative infrastructure to
  establish centre of excellence in management of
  New Zealand digital collections
• LCoNZ sites in partnership with Datacom evaluate
  range of repository solutions
• Extend existing experience of proprietary and
  open source
• Establish cost-effective options for
  multi-institutional repositories, externally
  hosted by Datacom on LCoNZ servers
• Option to maintain repositories within the
  institution
• Capability will result in sustainable, continuous
  access to New Zealand digital collections for
  learning and research

5
Building cultural awareness

• CONZUL believes that the economic, social and
  cultural interests of Aotearoa New Zealand will
  be advanced by the rapid adoption of open access
  to research and scholarly literature.
• LCoNZ purpose "to use and develop the best
  enabling technologies in a collaboration which
  will enhance the innovative delivery of library
  and information resources and services to the New
  Zealand tertiary learning and research
  community.
• AUT University Research Development Plan and
  Operational Plan "support initiatives to develop
  and populate institutional repositories of
  published research outputs that conform to
  international standards and architectures".

6
Rationale for collaborative approach

• David E. Shulenburger, Provost and Executive
  Vice Chancellor, University of Kansas noted at
  IATUL (International Association of Technological
  University Libraries) 2005 Conference,
  institutional repositories are
• A must if a University is to be able to
  demonstrate to its funding public its
  productivity, importance and worthiness as a
  funding recipient
• An unnecessarily expensive must if done by
  every university. Economies of scale will lead
  to multi-institutional repositories

7
Broad project outcomes

• NZ education and research sector achieve a more
  sophisticated approach to institutional
  repositories
• Investigations overseas show no one solution
  meets all needs
• Range of software solutions required for
  different types of collection and different sizes
  of institution.
• If standards based using international protocols
  (OAI-PMH), existing search engines that students
  are familiar with (e.g. Google Scholar, OAIster)
  can be used as discovery tools for access and
  retrieval in the e-learning environment
• Impact of research knowledge for society
  maximised in NZ and internationally
• Advance NZ Digital Strategy goal to unlock New
  Zealand's stock of content and provide all New
  Zealanders with seamless, easy access to the
  information that is important to their lives,
  businesses, and cultural identity.

8
Broad project outcomes

• Increased expertise and infrastructure for the
  dissemination, effective management and
  preservation of data, information and knowledge.
• established LCoNZ infrastructure (office, project
  management, wiki, committee structure) umbrella
  for collaboration, providing continuity and
  sustainability
• LCoNZ website ( http//www.lconz.ac.nz/index.html
  ) for promotion of capability in the LCoNZ
  Centre of Excellence
• Options for externally hosted multi-institutional
  repositories offered by Datacom as business
  arrangement to institutions beyond LCoNZ.
• LCoNZ has successful track record with Datacom as
  a business partner, hosting its library
  management system externally
• External hosting economic alternative for large
  institutions with extensive digital collections,
  as well as an outsourced solution for smaller
  institutions with limited expertise
• New Zealand will catch up with the UK, Australia
  and Canada

9
Specific project deliverables

• Build on recommendations of the National Library
  of NZs (July 2005) feasibility study on
  Institutional repositories for the research
  sector, with update of IRs currently developed or
  implemented in Australia and NZ
• Agree business partner relationships with Datacom
• Agree on criteria for evaluation of selected IR
  solutions
• LCoNZ sites evaluate repository solutions,
  building on current experience of proprietary and
  open source repository software e.g. ePrints
  (Otago), Greenstone, Australasian Digital Theses
  (Waikato), EnCompass for Digital Collections (all
  LCoNZ ), Digital Commons, DSpace (AUT, Victoria)
  etc. Fedora, Fez and other solutions included
• Recommend options for sustainable,
  multi-institutional IRs using the existing LCoNZ
  infrastructure
• Develop an implementation plan, with costings,
  for preferred IR solutions for LCoNZ members and
  future customers

10
Specific project deliverables

• Implement preferred IR solutions as functioning
  test beds, searchable by existing discovery tools
  used by learners and researchers
• Encourage authors to populate IRs by offering
  easy-to-use templates
• Participate in international IR activities and
  stay informed of new standards, technology,
  discovery tools etc
• Above steps follow established and tested LCoNZ
  business objectives, to
• Provide a common interface with familiar
  functionality for the benefit of Library patrons
  and the New Zealand research community
• Maximise the intellectual investment involved in
  purchasing and implementing new systems
• Provide a strong development group to work in
  partnership with vendors
• Purchase a system and develop an implementation
  approach that facilitates the smooth
  implementation of the chosen system for other
  institutions that wish to join the consortium in
  the future

11
Timelines

• 2005 each university developing its own IR
  projects
• March 2006 LCoNZ project scoped
• April 2006 Project extended as eCDF submission
• June 2006 LCoNZ Board approved initiating
  discussions with Datacom as business partner
• July 2006 LCoNZ Datacom to finalise proposal
  for LCoNZ Board approval
• July 2006 project to commence with agreed
  timelines