From OPAC to Archive: integrated discovery and digital libraries with open source

Institutions have traditionally neglected the intellectual potential of their research and publishing output. The traditional model for academic publishing neglects the importance of the institutions contribution to the creation and innovation of intellectual output. The open source movement represents an alternative to a monolithic vision of the web information resource offered by Google, Amazon and other content behemoths. Since the turn of the century innovation in open source systems has enabled libraries to extend their information management to digital libraries and to integrate these resources with other resource management and discovery tools. This presents an opportunity for institutions to make better use of the inherent knowledge in publications by consolidating these resources in an institutional repository managed by an effective metadata framework and suitable for long term discovery of content. This paper presents a model for development of unified institutional electronic resources delivered through open access and open source models through a combination of discovery tools using the OPAC and the repository capabilities of digital libraries. Examples of the cross-integration of open source systems will be provided as implemented in both developing and developed countries. This approach provides a sustainable and low cost model for implementation of institutional repositories. Libraries, with strong understanding of the importance of metadata and services standards, should be well positioned to managed these resources as long as they realign their skills to be actively engaged in the open source arena. This is a distributed vision – where quite small and very large collections can be bought together in a semantically meaningful way. It is also one where the library and librarian mediate internal datasets, digital and physical collections and external resources to the benefit of their organisation in effective knowledge management, education and entertainment.