Customizing DSpace: Developing Private Communities & Collections for Future Repository Integrations

Presentation given at the Open Repositories Conference in Denver, Colorado on June 8, 2022.In this presentation, practitioners from the Georgia Tech Library will describe our collaboration with DSpace vendor Atmire to deploy code customization allowing greater granularity over access permissions to our unique digital content, and to merge two locally hosted DSpace instances. This collaboration arose from efforts at Georgia Tech to bridge the traditionally separate worlds of the institutional repository and archival digital collections by employing a loosely integrated ecosystem of DSpace, ArchivesSpace, Archivematica, and Vireo. A first step in this effort was to merge two locally hosted DSpace instances used for quite different purposes: our open access institutional repository and a dark archive of both unprocessed born-digital materials and preservation copies of digitized files. Because DSpace is inherently designed for providing open access to an institution’s intellectual output, we required code customization that would allow greater control over access to the restricted content migrated from our dark archive. We collaborated with Atmire to develop a phased deployment process that would allow Georgia Tech to maintain our local technical institutional knowledge and administrative control while employing Atmire’s specialized skill set in DSpace code customization and support. We will share lessons learned about the costs and benefits of this more complex deployment strategy