A digital infrastructure for the scholarly activities of Texas universities

1

• A digital infrastructure for the scholarly
  activities of Texas universities

2
Challenges

• Increasing demands on research and education
  infrastructure
• Underutilized intellectual capital on campuses
• Global movement to transform scholarly
  communication

3
Addressing the Challenges

• A unified Texas Digital Library
• Collaboration among Texas ARLs (Association of
  Research Libraries)
• Sharing of resources
• Hard work
• Patience

4
Partners

• Initially
• The 5 Texas ARL libraries UT, AM, TT, Rice, UH
• Later
• All of higher education in Texas

5
TDL

• Center of excellence for the creation, curation,
  and preservation of digital scholarly information
  for the State
• Repository for research output
• electronic theses and dissertations
• faculty datasets, departmental databases, digital
  archives
• course management and learning materials
• digital media, special collections, etc.
• Platform for continued leadership in evolving
  scholarly communication systems

6
TDL

• Provides an innovative organizational model that
  effectively leverages advanced technology
• Produces institutional efficiencies in
  operations, equipment, and staffing
• Provides a testbed for research
• Advances our core research and teaching missions

7
Location

• Initially
• Central facility in Austin at UT
• Distributed centers at the 5 Texas ARLs
• Later
• Each university will likely have repositories of
  their own

8
Services

• Institutional repositories
• Learning object repositories
• Course management systems
• Scholarly publishing
• Collections management
• Preservation

9
Technologies

• Open source software
• Open archives initiative
• Internet2 and LEARN
• Web
• Standards

10
Network

• Lonestar Education and Research Network
• 1 Gigabit Dedicated Link for TDL
• Multiprotocol L2 Transport

11
Status

• Lots of activity behind the scenes
• Metadata standards for ETDs
• Funding and Organization
• Technical Briefing Dec. 13, 2005 in Austin
• Target February 1, 2006
• Website
• Open Journal System
• Journal of Digital Information (JoDI)
• Federated Institutional Repository
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations

12
TDL Architectural Layers
Services IRs
LORS Course management Scholarly
publishing Collection management Preservation
Enablers DSpace Fedora ADORE SAKAI
Connexions Eprints Dpubs
Middleware Shibboleth OAI-PMH SRB Preservation
Software (eg LOCKSS) Workflow Directory
Services
Network Internet 2 Learn POPS, dark archive
Architectural Layers
13
Organization

• Executive committee
• Technical committee
• Staff in Austin (small)
• Contributed resources from collaborating partners

14
Metadata Group IR/LOR Publishing Collections
Disaster Planning Systems Group Preservation Fac
ulty Advisory Board
15
Impacts

• Increases the institutions visibility and impact
• Increases value of intellectual capital by
  increasing accessibility to products of
  scholarship and research
• Increases competitiveness for research funding
• Maximizes the research capabilities of faculties
  by increasing the pace of scholarly dissemination
  and discovery

16
Impacts, cont.

• Increases stature as a leader in developing new
  working models for publication and dissemination
  of scholarly, research, and educational
  information
• Advances core teaching and research missions by
  fostering innovation in education and research
• Preserves intellectual assets for future
  generations of researchers, teachers, students,
  and scholars

17

• The Texas Digital Library will surely become
  one of the most important tools for research and
  education in Texas for the future
• www.tdl.org (coming in February)