[Dspace-general] ETDs and Communities in DSpace

[Margret Branschofsky]

Hi Scott,

The nice thing about DSpace is that you can have a thesis (or any item) 
appear in more than one community and collection.  At MIT we have all the 
theses together under the MIT Libraries community (in the thesis 
sub-community), since that is the "owning" community (we are the curators 
of the theses).  But we also have mapped each thesis to its degree-granting 
department.  Take a look at http://dspace.mit.edu.

I don't think anyone will look for them in the Libraries community, but we 
will be putting a pointer to that sub-community on the home page once we 
have finished loading the bulk of our thesis collection.

Hope this helps,

Margret Branschofsky

At 05:01 PM 7/13/2005 -0400, Scott P. Muir wrote:
>We are in the early stages of creating a repository of Theses and 
>Dissertations.  I am trying to develop an analysis of our options for 
>organizing materials, especially with an end-user approach.
>
>My reference librarians advise that most students come in and ask to see 
>all the (print) thesis written by students in a particular discipline, 
>e.g. Biology, History, etc.  If we chose a "communities" structure model 
>that is based on our Colleges and Departments structure that would readily 
>address that issue. However, it could also create a situation where in the 
>initial stages of this work, one might find only one thesis in the History 
>repository, which might not look so good.  On the other hand, if we 
>collected all the thesis into a single "thesis" community, then it becomes 
>harder for the History or Biology department to claim those publications 
>as part of their community.
>
>As we weigh the pros and cons of the possible approaches, and there are 
>likely others, I thought perhaps many of you had already addressed these 
>questions.  Would anyone out there be willing to share their thoughts, the 
>options you considered and why you chose one particular model over 
>another?  I do realize that this is a question for which there is not a 
>right or wrong answer, but I would be interested in what your processes were.
>
>My thinking has even led me to ask who is the end user?  Is it a community 
>or is it what we librarians consider our typical library patron, Designing 
>for these two different communities could have different outcomes too.
>
>Anyway thank you for any assistance you can offer.
>
>Scott P Muir
>Associate University Librarian
>Bruce T. Halle Library, Room 200F
>Eastern Michigan University
>955 West Circle Drive
>Ypsilanti, MI  48197-2207
>
>734.487.0020 x2222 (voice)
>734.484.1151 (fax)
>http://www.emich.edu/halle/
>
>mailto:scott.muir at emich.edu
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