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DalSpace Upgrade – A More Robust Institutional Repository

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DalSpace is Dalhousie’s open-access institutional repository. It is used to preserve, store, and showcase digital content created by the Dal community. You may have used DalSpace to search for or cite scholarly work, explore archival material, or upload a Master’s or PhD thesis. DalSpace makes content discoverable not just to the Dal community, but to people worldwide.

DalSpace must be a stable, reliable resource for people, however they choose to use it. Software upgrades ensure it is always secure and supportable. Over the last year, a team from Dal Libraries worked together to upgrade DalSpace, including system administrators, instructional support technicians, and scholarly communications and metadata librarians who tested it and provided feedback.

People Notice When DalSpace is Down

As with any upgrade, the goal is to ensure a seamless transition with minimal downtime. Choosing a downtime period for the platform was a challenge. Geoff Brown, digital scholarship librarian, says he gets emails from around the world about the repository’s resources. He noted there can be more than 1200 items added to DalSpace in the run of a year, with the Faculty of Graduate Studies as DalSpace’s biggest contributor and the heaviest upload times in June as students add their theses. It is understandable why coordinating downtimes takes time and thoughtful attention.

What Has Changed

Although it has a new look and feel, the public interface of DalSpace was not the focus of the upgrade. The work was primarily on the back end to make what was already a secure, stable, and reliable repository more robust. David Mifflen, system administrator with Academic Technology Services, says the front and back ends of DalSpace are now separated and run on different servers. The user interface is simplified, faster, more flexible, and more secure. Changes and updates are now easier to perform and will not impact the user’s experience. In addition to the new look, filters offer more nuanced browsing and searching.

Read more about DalSpace. If you have questions about registration or uploading content, contact Geoff Brown.

Open Access Week 2016: Making Your Publication OA in DalSpace

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by Geoff Brown,
Digital Scholarship Librarian

DalSpace is a digital library curated by the Dalhousie Libraries. We are committed to freely and openly distributing and preserving the scholarly record. Other online document repositories (e.g. Academia.edu, ResearchGate and SSRN) are owned by commercial interests and operate as scholarly social networking sites. These are excellent online spaces to communicate with your peers; however, they are not acceptable open access repositories. These sites often appear free but their purpose is to make money. They cannot be relied upon for long-term access to scholarship.

In general, open access repositories such as DalSpace have the following attributes:

  • Free to post and download
  • No registration required to view or download
  • Not owned by commercial enterprises
  • Primary purpose is to preserve and provide access
  • Created by academic institutions, scholarly societies, government agencies and related organizations

To get started with DalSpace:

Registration

Enter your email address, and click the “register” button. This will establish your DalSpace username and password.

Submissions

  • After registering, you initiate the deposit process by sending an email message to dalspace@dal.ca with your name, DalSpace username, department/unit, and a description of the type of deposit that you or your department would like to make to DalSpace. After this initial contact, you submit content directly into the system.

Go to Posting to DalSpace for more guidelines.

Eligibility

  • Dalhousie faculty members or research staff
  • Graduate students deposit their completed, accepted thesis into the DalSpace Faculty of Graduate Studies Online Thesis Collection.
  • Students may deposit material into specific collections authorized by Dalhousie faculty members. Works must be vetted prior to deposit to ensure quotes from published sources are cited and permission obtained to reproduce images.

New Dalhousie yearbooks available in DalSpace

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We’re thrilled to make a new batch of Dalhousie yearbooks available online!   The “Pharos” yearbooks from 1961-1975 have been added to our University Yearbooks Collection in DalSpace.

The Dalhousie Ladies’ Field Hockey Team (Pharos 1975, p. 38). The 1974 team went undefeated and won the Atlantic Intercollegiate Field Hockey Championship.

The online collection, which has been scanned with the assistance of funding from the Young Canada Works program, currently covers almost every Dalhousie yearbook from 1927 to 1975.  The newest batch, digitized by Riel Gallant, has a trove of photographs and stories about Dal students and faculty.  They are a particularly good source for information on athletics and student societies.  Check out the University Yearbooks Collection today!

 

 

Dalhousie 3D Model Collection on DalSpace

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The Dalhousie Libraries has launched its online collection of 3D models on DalSpace.

The collection currently features 3D scans created through a partnership with the Thomas McCulloch Museum in Dal’s Biology department. Right now you can see a canine skull, a nautilus shell, and a few other 3D scans, with much more to follow over the next few weeks. 3D printable versions of these objects will also be stored on DalSpace, for replication on the Killam Library’s 3D printer.

                                

The NextEngine 3D Scanner, which was used to scan both of the above objects, is available for student and faculty use on the main floor of the Killam Library. You can book time with this scanner through the Dalhousie University Libraries Room Booking System.

The Dalhousie Libraries 3D collection is completely open for student and faculty submissions as well. We are accepting 3D scans and 3D models created through other methods, such as those designed using AutoCAD, SolidEdge or 3D Studio Max. To submit a model for inclusion in the Dalspace 3D collection, simply email it to 3Dprint@dal.ca with ‘submission’ in the email’s title. If there’s any 3D models you’ve created during your time at Dalhousie, this is a great way to preserve your work and build a portfolio to show future employers.

 

Building Something Special with the Ecology Action Centre

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The Archives and Special Collections has been working closely with the Ecology Action Centre since last year’s donation of the organization’s historical records and reference library.  We’ve been busy getting the materials described so they can be accessed in our Reading Room.  We now have a print finding aid that is available on-site.

We hope to have the full finding aid online later this year, but in the meantime, we are also digitizing some of the organization’s key records and publications.  Ryan Dyck, a Practicum Student from the School of Information Management, has been scanning annual reports, general meeting minutes, and back issues of the EAC’s primary publication, Between the Issues. 

Ryan has been posting the digitized material in DalSpace, the university’s institutional repository.   Right now, the collection contains some recent issues of Between the Issues, annual reports, and minutes of some of the organization’s earliest annual meetings.  While modest in size (for now!), the collection provides a window into the development and growth of one of Canada’s foremost environmental advocacy groups.

We’re also excited about some tests we’ve been doing with World Cat Local.  Ecology Action Centre materials in DalSpace can now be found in the Library Catalogue.  Try a search for Between the Issues  and use the “Downloadable Archival Material” filter on the left side of the catalogue:

If you’re only searching materials at the Killam Library, this will narrow your results to full-text, downloadable back issues from DalSpace.  The link to view and download the issue can be found in the full item record:

We have some kinks to work out, but keep an eye out for more downloadable archival material – from the EAC and other archival collections – in the months to come!