DSS Launches New Samvera-Based Digital Repository
Adam Malantonio, Digital Initiatives Developer
Led by Digital Initiatives Developer Adam Malantonio and Digital Repository Librarian Nora Egloff, Digital Scholarship Services recently launched a new digital repository based on the Samvera suite of repository software. Samvera is a community of information, cultural heritage, and technology professionals who collaborate to create sustainable software solutions for accessible digital collections. DSS’s migration to a Samvera-based repository platform represents Lafayette College Libraries’ significant investment in the values of open-source library technologies and open access scholarly publishing.
Nora Egloff, Digital Repository Librarian
The Lafayette Digital Repository includes a host of exciting content, from faculty publications, to College publications such as the Lafayette newspaper and alumni magazine, to College archival and special collections such as the Marquis de Lafayette Prints Collection and the East Asia Image Collection. To launch the new repository, Adam Malantonio brought his software development skills to bear, building it from the ground up using a combination of existing code provided by the Samvera community as well code he wrote himself to creatively meet needs for particular repository functions. Nora Egloff determined how metadata would be structured in the repository. She applied linked data controlled vocabularies to enhance the discoverability of resources across collections within the repository, and to facilitate the integration (currently in progress) of repository contents with the Digital Public Library of America.
Image from the Gerald & Rella Warner Japan Slides Collection in the East Asia Image Collection in the Lafayette Digital Repository.
Although the contents of the repository are too varied to pick favorites, asked to highlight an item of note in the Lafayette Digital Repository, Nora selected a snapshot portrait of an itinerant priest on the outskirts of Takasaki, Japan, that appears in the East Asia Image Collection in the repository. “This slide is an arresting example of the candid street photography taken by Rella and Gerald Warner, while they were stationed in Japan as diplomatic representatives of the State Department during the postwar US occupation of Japan. The subject stands on a gravel road in front of a freshly-plowed field. He appears to have paused mid-stride to regard the photographer directly as they crossed paths.” Nora also highlights the College Archives Image Collection, which includes digitized materials from the College’s nearly 200-year history.
Would you like to learn more about the Lafayette Digital Repository? Please join the Lafayette College Libraries Digital Humanities Community of Practice for a virtual repository launch on Monday, February 22, at noon. Click here to join by Zoom.
Read about the repository in Lafayette Today and the Lafayette Newspaper.