lib-ir: dspace status

["JQ Johnson" <jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

After quite a bit of gnashing of teeth, I finally got a DSpace test
implementation running.  You can check it out at http://ir.uoregon.edu.
The administrative interface to dspace is currently at
http://ir.uoregon.edu:8080/dspace/admin but you'll need a username and
password in order to get into it; try creating an account for yourself
then let me know and I'll give you administrator status.

Still a lot to be done before it will be ready for a test project.  Some
of the tasks I have not yet begun but should be able to do before we get
much further in our pilot project:
 - clean up various hacks in the system setup (shortcuts I used to get
it up and running)
 - change the visual appearance of the pages to be more UO Library
standard
 - implement a CNRI handle server
 - implement OAI metadata harvesting
 - implement links to SFX
 - improve security.  Currently, all traffic including passwords is sent
as http, but we really need to have it encrypted
 - set up backup/archiving
 - design a set of communities and initial collections

One important note is that DSpace, like most such systems, has a notion
of personal logins.  Currently we allow anyone to self-authorize then
manually add them to community groups.  We will eventually need to
change this (and tie into some more general authentication system), but
the tools available are quite limited.

More generally, we should not expect to be able to change the
functionality or workflows offered by DSpace.  Though in principle it's
open source, in fact we won't have the time or the programming expertise
to do much.  So what you see in the admin control panel is all you get.

JQ Johnson                    	Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator	e-mail: jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon     	1-541-346-1746 (v); -3485 (fax)
Eugene, OR  97403-1299        	http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj