PEPIA: a Norwegian collaborative effort for institutional repositories
OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives
ISSN: 1065-075X
Article publication date: 5 June 2007
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on Project for Electronic Publications and Institutional Archives (PEPIA), which is a government‐sponsored Norwegian effort, to provide institutional repositories to multiple Norwegian universities, university colleges and other research institutions through a consortium managed by BIBSYS.
Design/methodology/approach
Some aspects of the project are headlined to give a brief introduction to the PEPIA project and the problems associated with creating a consortium with multiple institutions on one software platform.
Findings
The ongoing project PEPIA has shown that it is possible for multiple organizations to join forces and create a consortium to develop an institutional repository on one software platform. After an initial requirements specification phase it was found that most institutions have the same basic requirements, even though they may seem different. The requirements, besides basic registration and searching, are mostly centered on integration with library systems, research documentation systems, national OAI harvesters and preferably learning management systems. The experience with the freely available DSpace software is mostly good, but the work of integrating the software into an already existing software development platform and production environment was more complex than estimated. The user management mechanisms in DSpace is too simplistic but the development of a more advanced rule‐based access mechanisms for collections has resulted in a lot easier management by users, and can further lower the operating costs for the members of the consortium.
Originality/value
The paper provides an overview of the PEPIA project, which enables more and more institutions to see the benefits of working together towards better solutions.
Keywords
Citation
Magnus Elvenes Joki, S. (2007), "PEPIA: a Norwegian collaborative effort for institutional repositories", OCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 204-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/10650750710748504
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited