[Web4lib] Photo Repositories

[Keith Gilbertson]

Joe,

I can second Ina's recommendation of DSpace, especially if you're looking
for a relatively turnkey open-source solution that's readily usable with all
types of digital collections.   OhioLINK and Texas Digital Library are both
building federations of digital repository systems based on this software.
Support on the project mailing lists is typically very good.  I installed,
configured, and customized DSpace systems in a previous life, so you can
also e-mail me directly if you get stuck on anything.  I've started an IT
services firm specializing in library and educational software should you
need any custom work.

Also popular for collections that are primarily images:  CONTENTdm (
http://www.contentdm.org/).  A great example of a federation of CONTENTdm
instances with many image collections is Ohio's Heritage Northeast (
http://www.ohiosheritagenortheast.org/).

University of Cincinnati Libraries have done some image projects based on
the Luna Insight (http://www.lunaimaging.com/insight/index.html) platform
from Luna Imaging.

There are licensing costs associated with both CONTENTdm and Luna Insight.
If you have available developer resources, another open source option is to
build a custom interface for the robust and flexible Fedora platform.  For
example, Peter Herndon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center developed a
Django front end for Fedora with special features for a very large image
repository.

As you continue with your evaluation, especially if you'll need to integrate
with other systems,  also think about the level and type of metadata that
you need for collections and make sure that your solution can support it.

 -- keith


On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Ina Smith <Ina.Smith at up.ac.za> wrote:

> Hi Joe
>
> I can suggest DSpace open source software. Visit www.dspace.org We use it
> for all research output, from articles to photos to images to photos. For a
> comparison of other repository software, visit
> http://www.dspace.org/images/publications/repository-software-survey-2009-03.pdf
>
>