[Dspace-general] DSpace installation experience

[McCormick, Kathy]

Post Street Archives is a small non-profit organization in Midland, Michigan
which collects, maintains, and makes accessible historical materials
concerning the Dow Chemical Company and the family of its founder, Herbert
H. Dow.  We are privately owned by the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow
Foundation.  We are finishing up the installation of DSpace 1.3.2 which we
will use for our digitally archived material.  This note is a summary of how
we achieved this milestone and the documentation resulting from it that
might be of use to others in the DSpace community.
 
One of the challenges of this project was to determine the
capabilities/limitations of DSpace in an archival setting vs. the university
setting for which DSpace was designed. Differences include work flow
processes (one or two submitters vs. a community of submitters) and
differences in the type of material stored and related metadata concerns.
Our primary objective was to create a low-cost digital archive which would
allow the capture and preservation of digital material, as well as access to
that material.  Long-term preservation and migration to new file
formats/technologies will continue to be major areas of concern. 
 
The installation was completed by a team consisting of students at Michigan
Technological University (MTU) in conjunction with our IT support group
(MITCON) and myself as the Post Street representative.  MITCON provides IT
support to over 30 non-profit agencies in the Midland area.  Funding for
this project was provided by the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.
For more information about MITCON and its ongoing collaboration with MTU,
see the January 24 Press Release at this link:
http://www.michigansmalltech.com/PressReleases/index.asp?pg=2
 
The objectives for the project were:
1.       Install DSpace on a server provided by Post Street Archives at MTU.

2.       Conduct functionality testing to validate the success of the
installation.
This step required Post Street personnel to learn DSpace functionality in
depth which also led to better final implementation plans.
3.       Configure DSpace to meet Post Street Archives requirements.
This was done with the goal to minimize any customization given the nature
of our long-term IT support options. This will allow us to migrate to newer
versions of DSpace with minimized IT support.
4.       Create documentation to enable re-installation of DSpace on
multiple servers for several organizations.
5.       Move the server to its final location and perform final
installation for Post Street Archives.
 
I would be happy to share our experiences in more depth with anyone
interested.   The technical system documentation which describes the
installation procedure step-by-step can be found on the DSpace wiki at the
following address:
http://wiki.dspace.org/TechnicalFaq <http://wiki.dspace.org/TechnicalFaq>
under - 10.
<http://wiki.dspace.org/TechnicalFaq#head-40d174cff494e5e8a26eb5eb146b2fe134
cc9bcd#head-40d174cff494e5e8a26eb5eb146b2fe134cc9bcd> Are there any tips on
running DSpace on Redhat/Fedora Core Linux?
 
We also have general end-user documentation which I can provide if anyone is
interested.
 
I will be attending the joint SAA/ NAGRA/ COSA meeting, along with our
director Tawny Nelb, in Washington D.C. next week should anyone want to
share experiences with DSpace implementations at that time.
 
Best regards,
 
Kathy McCormick
Digital Archive Coordinator
Post Street Archive
989-832-0870
 
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