[Dspace-general] DSpace 1.5

[Scott Phillips]

Everyone,

The DSpace community is pleased to announce the release of DSpace 1.5!  
This is an important release of DSpace with many new features,  
including a completely new theme-able Manakin user interface, SWORD  
integration, many new configurable options, and scalability  
improvements. Thanks to everyone who participated in the testing of  
this new release.

DSpace 1.5 can be downloaded directly from SourceForge. The  
documentation for this release is bundled within the package and will  
be available shortly on the dspace.org website.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dspace/


New Features:

* Maven
DSpace 1.5 introduces a new Maven-based build system. Maven is a  
software tool from Apache that allows developers to compile and  
distribute software projects. Maven also enables DSpace to be more  
modular by arranging the software into sub-components. In addition, it  
makes customizations easier by giving developers the tools to maintain  
customizations, and provides the ability to manage new features as  
DSpace continues its accelerating growth rate.

For more information:
http://maven.apache.org/
http://www.devzuz.com/web/guest/products/resources#BBWM


* Manakin
Customize your repository look-and-feel with the new Manakin theme- 
able user interface. Manakin introduces a new modular framework,  
enabling an institution to customize their interface according to the  
specific needs of the particular repository, community, or collection.

For more information:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november07/phillips/11phillips.html

Repositories currently using Manakin:
http://repositories.tamu.edu/
http://repositories.tdl.org/
http://www.jobim.org/manakin/
https://www.policyarchive.org/
https://oa.doria.fi/
http://dome.mit.edu/
http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/


* Light Network Interface
Integrate DSpace with legacy or local systems that need to manage  
content in the repository through the new Light Network Interface.  
This interface provides a programmatic mechanism to manage content  
within the repository through a WebDAV or SOAP based protocol.

For more information:
http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/LightweightNetworkInterface


* SWORD
Integrate with the new SWORD (Simple Web-service Offering Repository  
Deposit) protocol. Based upon the Atom Publishing Protocol, this  
interface allows for cross-repository deposit of new content. This  
protocol may enable future tools that will provide for 'one click'  
deposit.

For more information:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/j.allinson/or2007-deposit.pdf
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/SWORD_APP_Profile_1.2


* Browsing
The browsing system has been completely re-implemented to provide  
improved scalability and configuration. The new browsing system  
enables administrators to easily create new browse indexes.

For more information:
http://www.dspace.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151&Itemid=116


* Submissions
The item submission system is now more configurable by managing the  
steps a user follows when submitting a new item to the repository. The  
new submission system allows for these steps to be rearranged,  
removed, and even allows for new steps to be added.

For more information:
https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/bitstream/2142/207/3/OR2007-ConfigurableSubmission.ppt.pdf


* Events
Another under-the-hood improvement introduced in DSpace 1.5 is the  
event system, which improves scalability and modularity by introducing  
an event model to the architecture. This feature will allow future add- 
ons to automatically manage content in the repository based upon when  
an object has been added, modified, or removed from the system.

For more information:
http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/EventMechanism



I thank everyone who participated in testing Dspace throughout the 1.5  
release process. Special thanks to Keith Gilbertson, Stuart Lewis, and  
Claudia Juergen for submitting many quality bug reports that were  
extremely helpful in polishing this release. Also, I would like to  
highlight the contributions of several developers: Tim Donohue for  
closing many bugs, Graham Triggs for his lighting fast response on  
browsing and database issues, and Mark Diggory for resolving build  
problems.



Scott Phillips
Research and Development Coordinator
Texas Digital Library and Texas A&M University Libraries
scott at library.tamu.edu