Posts by Nishkala Thiru

Open Repository upgrades all clients to DSpace V1.8

Nishkala Thiru on April 12, 2012 at 2:50 am - 0 Comments

Open Repository is pleased to announce all customers have been upgraded to DSpace, version 1.8.

Benefits of the upgrade include:

     •   the ability to export communities and collections
     •   RSS feeds now support richer features, such as iTunes podcast and publishing to iTunesU
   •   supervisors and supervision orders
       •   open search functionality
       •   the ability for administrators to carry out more complex metadata editing in batches

Automatic upgrades are part of the service offered by Open Repository, enabling customers to concentrate on the management of content within their repositories, while quickly gaining the benefits of all the latest features.

When speaking about the upgrade, Bryan Vickery, Chief Operating Officer of BioMed Central said …

ALA Midwinter 2012

Nishkala Thiru on February 13, 2012 at 4:16 am - 0 Comments

BioMed Central’s Open Repository recently exhibited at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Dallas. Warm and sunny, it was a great change of scenery with excellent food!

In a climate of stretched budgets, attendance at the conference seemed low. However it was great that our representatives: Bob Schatz and Nish Thiru were kept very busy at the booth. It was also fantastic to see the support of open access from the attendees and for us to provide an opportunity to inform them about how Open Repository’s hosted solution could help them meet their green, open access needs.

Bob Schatz presented a very well-received workshop entitled Institutional Repositories and the Open Repository Solution. Examining the role repositories serve in institutions, …

Aiding those in poverty: Oxfam GB partners with Open Repository

Nishkala Thiru on January 25, 2012 at 3:37 am - 0 Comments

Today Oxfam GB,
a leading international charity with a worldwide reputation for
excellence in the delivery of humanitarian aid and development work, has
adopted Open Repository’s enhanced DSpace hosted solution.

When
Oxfam began a project to create a website to handle their policy,
practice and research materials for professional audiences, they
realized there was no single, secure deposit location for their digital
assets on poverty and suffering worldwide. Hence, they decided to
implement a repository that could store their digital assets in multiple
formats, have simple search and deposit functions to suit users with no
background in repository use, and therefore enable Oxfam to showcase
their large and ever evolving …

University of Derby internally launch their repository

Nishkala Thiru on December 21, 2011 at 4:13 am - 0 Comments

The University of Derby, UK, recently held an event introducing its research department to UDORA, the University’s repository.

Philip Plowden, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, was the main speaker along with the Head of Research, Professor Paul Bridges. They spoke on the benefits of open access and institutional repositories for the institute, researchers, the library and the general public as a whole.

The day was hosted by Richard Finch, Academic Services Manager for the University Library and the repository team: Melanie Keady, E-Resources Development Manager; Tim Peacock, E-Resources & Interlending Administrator and Val Wilkins, Resource and Metadata Librarian who have all contributed to making UDORA a success.

It was a pleasure to be at the event and to speak …

Open Repository Releases OpenAthens SP

Nishkala Thiru on December 1, 2011 at 5:19 am - 0 Comments

Open Repository, the enhanced DSpace hosted service from
BioMed Central has always worked with institutes to provide LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) to enable
access and maintain a distributed directory service for accessing individual
repositories. Directory services provide
an organized set of records, often with a hierarchical structure, enabling the
need for a ‘Single Sign-On’ for all solutions held within an organization,
without the need for individual solution log-in details.

I am pleased to announce that this service has been
extended for OpenAthens
SP (Service Provider). OpenAthens SP
is a standard compliant platform which enables users to securely manage access
to all the solutions held within their organization via a Single Sign-On portal. …

Open Repository in the USA: The University of Arizona’s repository

Nishkala Thiru on November 9, 2011 at 10:31 am - 0 Comments

Open Repository is pleased to announce its first institutional US customer, the University of Arizona.

As a premier public research university, the University of Arizona’s Campus Repository, managed by the University Libraries, supports the dissemination of campus intellectual output by collecting, archiving and preserving scholarly materials produced by campus faculty and researchers, as well as showcasing the materials to an unrestricted audience on a global scale.

The University Libraries sought a hosted solution for the Campus Repository because they wanted to benefit from the experience and expertise the Open Repository staff had with DSpace technology. By implementing the Open Repository service, the Libraries now have a uniquely customized, reliable and cost-effective repository …

Virginia Henderson Library repository launched

Nishkala Thiru on November 1, 2011 at 11:30 am - 0 Comments

The Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library (VHL) is the latest Open Repository customer to have launched their repository at the Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) Biennial Convention in Texas last Saturday, 29th October.

STTI offers nurses, in all roles around the globe, online access to reliable nursing information that can be easily utilized and shared. Recent advances in Internet technologies and wider policies regarding mandatory open access to published articles influenced STTI’s decision to expand their online Registry of Nursing Research abstract database into a new, full-text service.

Margie Wilson, Library Manager at STTI stated “When looking to enhance our system, we found that the Open Repository system offered by BioMed Central provided …

Open Access Week 2010 includes 14 new open access mandates

Nishkala Thiru on November 2, 2010 at 11:16 am - 1 Comment

This year’s Open Access Week was the largest and most successful yet, with just under 900 participants from 94 countries! The aim of this global event was to open the public’s eyes to the benefits of open access in scholarly publishing and its impact on scientific progress across disciplines and society as a whole.

This year’s event included the Open Access Week Mandate Adoption Challenge, inviting institutions to announce their open access mandates and submit them to ROARMAP. The first mandate announced was from Teesside University for the launch of their repository, TeesRep, powered by Open Repository. It requires Teesside University researchers to deposit publicly available output of the University’s research into TeesRep, …

Open Repository joins DuraSpace Registered Service Provider program

Nishkala Thiru on October 12, 2010 at 2:53 am - 0 Comments

Open Repository is pleased to announce we are now a DuraSpace Registered Service Provider. DuraSpace is a not-for-profit organization that aims to establish partnerships with companies that provide support services to institutions using DSpace and Fedora digital repository software. Open Repository shares their commitment to ensure that current and future generations have access to our digital heritage.

Being a Registered Service Provider reflects Open Repository’s position as an active participant in the DSpace open source software community, and our commitment to providing expertise and technical consulting to enable customers to achieve their open access goals by providing digital repositories.

Bryan Vickery, COO of BioMed Central says, “BioMed Central, through its Open Repository service, …

2010 SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting, November 8-9, Baltimore

Nishkala Thiru on September 28, 2010 at 10:33 am - 1 Comment

Open Repository is pleased to be a sponsor at the 2010 SPARC Digital Repositories Meeting, which is taking place on November 8-9, 2010 at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, U.S.A.

The North American SPARC meeting is a unique forum for diverse stakeholders, including librarians, technologists and research producers, to come together and consider how best to leverage the practices and policies that have proven successful in advancing repositories to date, as well as explore new challenges.

The event will feature an international selection of speakers, who will discuss:

Repository-based publishing services: Strategies for success (or failure)
Open data
Global repository networks
Making the case for financial sustainability

There will also be an Innovation Fair where participants will present, in …