[Dspace-general] Data-centric repository

[Hilmar Lapp]

Hi -

since this is my first posting to this list, I'll briefly introduce  
myself. I run the Informatics at the National Evolutionary Synthesis  
Center, NESCent (http://www.nescent.org), which is an NSF funded  
center located in Durham, NC. Among many other things, we are tasked  
with establishing a digital repository for data in evolution (and at  
first we will focus on published data). A synopsis of what we are  
planning and some of the driving motivations are at http:// 
driade.nescent.org.

I've just returned from OR2007, which really left me in awe at the  
work and the expertise of the people involved in DSpace that I met  
there.

The repository we are aiming to establish is primarily going to be  
for digital data, not documents (more specifically, data associated  
with publications). In recollection, most or all of the DSpace-based  
repositories that were presented were concerned with documents, not  
data (or so it appeared to me).

I was wondering to what extent this is a false observation, and  
whether or not this contains a message. Based on a superficial look  
at the DSpace data model there seems to be no restriction or bias as  
to what the digital object may be. I learned from one of you that in  
the DSpace data model I have no way to represent hierarchical and  
typed relationships between the individual bitstreams that constitute  
the parts of a 'dataset', which I found a very helpful comment.

I understand that I need to study that data model in more detail, but  
wanted to ask the community whether there are any examples for DSpace- 
based data-centric digital repositories, and how they fared with DSpace.

Thanks in advance for any comments, links, or other pointers, and BTW  
if anyone has comments or suggestions on our digital data repository  
project as outlined above, please don't hesitate to send those my way  
too, I'll forward them to the project team.

	-hilmar
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: Hilmar Lapp  -:-  Durham, NC  -:- hlapp at duke dot edu :
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