Ellen Catz Ramsey
Director, Scholarly Repository Services
University of Virginia
What happens when the chosen solution to an institution’s service needs, whether homegrown, community developed, or purchased, reaches end-of-life or dies on the vine, but the academic and organizational reasons for the service continue to expand? In 2010, the University of Virginia was an early adopter of Hydra/Fedora repository solutions. By 2014, it was time for more than just a code refresh. In 2017, we now have multiple modular repository parts, some more open source than others. This is not your grandparents’ repository. We have had successes (student deposits as graduation requirements, one-stop searching, consistent branding), some failures typical of early institutional repositories (if you build it, they might not come), and some promising experiments (modular containers for different content types, persistent identifiers for both works and authors). In 2016 we relaunched our then-Hydra/Sufia “LibraETD” repository and rolled out LibraData (built on Dataverse) as our modular data container. In 2017 we launched the Samvera/Sufia “LibraOpen” to better address the emerging open scholarship needs of University authors. As we continue to assess existing modular services and add new ones such as library publishing and software preservation, we would like to share our experiences and metrics, learn about how other experts are managing and enhancing what they offer, and keep investing in community solutions relevant to the needs of institutions like ours.