Open Source Solutions for Creation of ETD Archives/Repository: A Case Study of Central Library @ NIT Rourkela

Abstract

In academic/research institutions, the Institutional Repositories (IR) is the primary source to archive scholarly communication containing data, information, photographs and results of valuable research. These are vital and robust systems that allow institutions to preserve and maintain their digital documents and allow for interaction and collaboration among users in the different institutions. There are numbers of digital library software available as “Open Source” as well as “Proprietary”. The open source software helps the libraries especially in eliminating vendor lock-in and reducing the cost with greater flexibility. These software are generally available free of cost with the capability to capture, store, index, preserve and redistribute all scholarly research materials in digital formats. This paper deals with open source software (OSS) solutions especially DSpace, EPrints, Greenstone, Fedora projects and others for establishing institutional repository (IR). These OSS have developed a system that allows users to use and submit the contents for IR, and also allows the administrators to organize, configure and customize the IR accordingly to the requirements. The primary attempt of this paper is to discuss the implementation of IR with special reference to Odiya Books & Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) in Central Library of National Institute of Technology Rourkela (NITR). An attempt has been made to showcase the implementations of various OSS tools and usage ranking of these websites with the help of screenshots.