The Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive Project

Developing a primary source repository for eHumanities research

The IVRLA was conceived as a means to maximise the availability of primary source humanities content from a number of UCD repositories. These include: UCD Archives, UCD Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore and the National Folklore Collection, the Irish Dialect Archive and UCD James Joyce Library Special Collections.

All the repositories hold content of direct interest to humanities researchers and collectively enabled the project to assess the creation and management of digital surrogates of all major data types (image, audio, video, text, print, dataset etc.) The management of these digital objects was compounded by the varying collection models in situ as some collections were hierarchical and others were linear. It was also felt that there was a very strong need to ensure that collection context and structure could be retained and represented in the digital domain.

The three main project tracks are as follows: Track one which began in 2005 and is on-going, saw a period of dedicated research into best practice for digitisation and cataloguing of digital objects and how to manage and handle such objects within collection structures. This work resulted in a sophisticated workflow for the scanning, capture, cataloguing, and preservation of digital objects in addition to the creation of a number of derivative versions for delivery. The project utilises Djvu as its main delivery format and uses Encoded Archival Description and MODS for collection and object descriptive metadata. Further information about this is available on the project website.

Track two of the project is focussed on the development of a sophisticated repository to hold and store these digital objects. At its base the repository layer is Fedora. Fedora was selected due to its inherent flexibility and it allowed the development of an interface suited to the project's requirements. The ability to deploy an open source system rather than buy into a proprietary system was regarded as a distinct advantage, particularly as the project co-operates with UCD's Schools of Computer Science & Informatics, and Information & Library Studies in the development of additional added value services. Fedora's architecture enabled the articulation of an appropriate content model and one that can support any future services which may be plugged into this infrastructure.

Track three which was inaugurated in 2007 sees the development of the particular IVRLA interface allowing researchers access and use the stored content, in addition to offering an expanding suite of user tools and functions, such as search, browse, citation support and tagging elements.