IRLS 675 Final Blog

This course provided opportunities to build  repositories and practice working within those environments. The four open source content management systems we worked with were dissimilar enough to practice different skills, yet parallel enough to have a continuity of learning.


Drupal was a robust platform, and offered much more than just the ability to develop a repository. At this particular time in my learning curve most of its features, like running intranets, portals and blogs, and managing websites was lost on me. I felt like I only scratched the surface during the practice time using it. My end impression was that it was flexible to use as a repository, but not the best choice for one. I did not like the way items and metadata were presented in a blog-like display, but this might have been overcome with a more in-depth exploration.

This was my second opportunity to use DSpace, the first was IRLS 671--Introduction to Digital Collections. The workflow was easier the second time, but I must admit my dislike of the interface that organized everything into communities. One repository I evaluated had close to 100 communities listed on their welcoming page, which was not welcoming at all to an end-user unfamiliar with the university’s administrative structure.

EPrints strength lay in its ability to archive and distribute scholarly publications. It was designed perfectly for that purpose, and was flexible enough to accommodate my collection of images. However its academic environment was a poor match for the touristy feel of my collection of photographs.

I especially liked Omeka, and felt it has a lot to offer. As opposed to the other three, I think its ability to host a collection in the clouds (for a fee, of course) is a positive feature that i might be able to use later.

I think one of the most important outcomes of this class for me was a better understanding of metadata; working with application profiles, ontologies and taxonomies. Overall I learned a lot about working with repository platforms and am looking forward to applying what I have learned.