Andy Patrizio, Taming the Digital Beast, Campus Technology, June 1, 2006
http://www.campus-technology.com/article.asp?id=18574
This article has an interesting quote about fears of open source IR software:
"many other institutions and corporations have shunned or minimized their
use of open source: The software may be free up front, but you can get
bitten on the back end, they complain. Says Deekle (dean of University
Library Services at Roger Williams University (RI)), ^ÓOpen source is great
from the acquisition standpoint, but the back-end support required to
maintain some of these solutions the custom programming needing
programmers of different languages was prohibitive. We don^Òt have the
kinds of resources available to handle apps like that.^Ô
It's possible this applies more to small and medium size institutions, but
it's worth noting there is an alternative for those who fear this problem.
The institution quoted in the article chose another solution, but there is
also EPrints Services (
http://www.eprints.org/services/), and others. These
types of services are relatively new. EPrints Services has been working on
a number of contracts and gaining experience in this area.
Generally there are now many more options for building, hosting,
maintaining and custom development of IRs, and these are worth exploring
for all repositories whether new or established, large or small, whether
looking to add new features or enhance performance. This can save time and
money, even where the software itself is free.
Steve Hitchcock
EPrints Community Manager
IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3256 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
Join the EPrints Community to make the most of your repository
http://www.eprints.org/community/
EPrints Community is supported by JISC and is an EPrints Services
initiative
http://www.eprints.org/services/sales/
Received on Tue Jun 06 2006 - 14:47:54 BST