11 December 2006
|
|
In this issue...
New repository customers
Since our last newsletter, we are delighted to announce the following new Open Repository customers:
Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu
(Netherlands Institute for Public Health and the Environment)
Bilthoven, Netherlands
University of Chester
United Kingdom
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung
(The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research)
Germany
Last month also saw the official launch of Manchester Metropolitan University’s open access repository, e-space, for further information please read our press release.
Open Repository has continued to provide free pilot repositories so users can try, without obligation, the service for themselves. Recent pilot repositories have included University of East London and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
NEW promotional material for Open Repository customers
Promotion and populating an institutional repository can be a major challenge for institutions, which is why Open Repository now offers promotional packs to all its customers to assist them with this task.
Our promotional packs include different types of posters, workstations users guides, ‘how to submit’ user leaflets and printed versions of our administrator and user manuals.
 |
 |
If you are a customer and would like further copies of any material, please don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Service team at info@openrepository.com.
New Open Repository features
We continually strive to improve the service that Open Repository offers and are pleased to announce that over the last few months the following features have been added:
Stored searches
Users are now able to stay up to date on new repository items based on search terms with email alerts or RSS feeds. You can view a walk-through of this new feature on our website.
Non-Latin character metadata display
Non Latin alphabet characters (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic etc) can now be entered as metadata in the Open Repository submission form and displayed within the item view.
Custom submission forms
Repository administrators can now choose which of the available fields they want to be displayed within their own submission forms.
Custom Browse Columns
Repository administrators can now decide which columns are displayed within the Browse Titles and Browse Date pages.
ZORA goes live and reaches 1000 deposited items
The University of Zurich’s institutional repository, ZORA (Zurich Open Repository and Archive), has been officially launched this month and we are pleased to announce that following their hard work in the build up to the launch, ZORA has become the first Open Repository customer to archive over 1000 items.
 |
 |
Ingeborg Zimmermann, Head of Research Library Irchel and Project Manager, explains why Zurich chose BioMed Central's Open Repository service,
"Open Repository allowed for a jump-start of our institutional repository, while keeping the mid-term option of moving all content to Zurich and running the repository in-house. Being a university with a large output in biomedical research, the submission of content using PubMed ID and thus enabling automatic metadata transfer was a great help in reaching our first goal of 1000 publications."
The University of Zurich is the largest university in Switzerland and to date now has 1229 items in its repository.
Conferences
Open Repository was pleased to be able to take part and sponsor the recent Internet Librarian conference in London, UK and also the Open Scholarship meeting in Glasgow, UK.
BioMed Central shall also be exhibiting at the following conferences over coming months and demonstrating Open Repository at our booth. Please contact us at institutions@biomedcentral.com for an appointment or just drop by our booth if you are planning to attend any of these events. We look forward to meeting you!
Open Repository 2007
We shall have representatives attending the Second International Conference on Open Repositories, January 23-26, 2007 in San Antonio, Texas. Contact us at info@openrepository.com to arrange a meeting.
ALA Midwinter
The American Library Association Midwinter Meeting 2007 will be held in Seattle, WA, from January 19-24, 2007. BioMed Central will be exhibiting at booth #352.
Information Online 2007
BioMed Central shall be exhibiting at the biannual Information Online meeting to be held at Darling Harbour in Sydney, Australia, from 30th January to 1st February 2007. Please contact Marianne Josserand-Haska for further information or to arrange an appointment.
HSLG
We shall be exhibiting at the 2007 annual conference of the Health Sciences Libraries Group (HSLG) of the Library Association of Ireland, which is taking place in Athlone, Co.Westmeath, Ireland 15th – 16th February 2007. Please contact Dominic Tate for further information.
Forthcoming feature developments
Development work on Open Repository and DSpace is ongoing and as such the service that Open Repository offers will continue to grow. We expect the following developments to be released in the coming months*:
LDAP
It will soon be possible to use LDAP to authenticate institutional users using your repository.
Updated Help And Training Pages
We will be upgrading the Open Repository section to include a greater array of help and training guides including Flash walk-throughs, updated FAQs and user manuals.
DSpace 1.4
We are currently upgrading the base DSpace code to the latest release, version 1.4, which will result in improved performance, many new features and support for users.
*Release dates will be announced separately and the schedule may possibly change. Therefore we cannot guarantee exact dates for these releases.
Sales Representatives
If you have any questions or would like to arrange a free pilot repository, please contact your sales representative who will be happy to assist you.