Digital Initiatives & Services Committee (DISC)
May 2011 Quarterly Report
Laurie Taylor, Chair, laurien@ufl.edu
Barbara Lewis, Vice-Chair, blewis@lib.usf.edu
Summary
This report reflects DISC activity during March, April, and May 2011. The group met 3 times by
conference call to:
 Discuss statewide collaboration on digital initiatives and services, and to share research
 Coordinate activities with the Special Collections Subcommittee
 Discuss issues related to centralized services: common digital library system and companion
tools, Florida Digital Archive (FDA); digital items and collections discovery in MANGO;
DigiTool/DLXS/PALMM; Archon; Open Journal Systems (OJS)
Conference call minutes are posted on the DISC wiki at http://swiki.fcla.edu:8000/DISC.
DISC Action Items
1. None at this time.
Progress on Activities
1. DISC: Common Digital Library System
A subgroup for the common digital library system report, due in September, has been formed that will
focus on the report with all information shared with the full DISC group. The group notes are on the
DISC wiki (http://swiki.fcla.edu:8000/DISC/59).
The final report will include two components:
1. Common digital library system (primary)
2. Companion tools to augment the primary system (supplemental; require primary)
The report will include a quantitation ranking for all of these systems following an updated version of
the already developed requirements list and ranking. The report will also include a brief narrative
explanation of each system and the reason for selection/deselection. The report will include additional
information on the reviewed systems in terms of: their applicability for the SUL needs; overall
costs/requirements on an annual basis; timeline for establishing the new system with responsible
agents; timeline for changes to existing systems with responsible agents; and any recommendations
and implementation specifications for companion tools.
For the primary system, the group focused the report to include these systems for consideration:
 SobekCM1
 Extensible Text Framework (other required components under review)
 Fedora (version under consideration) with interface (options also under review)
1
SobekCM is the full digital library system and suite of tools powering the UF Digital Collections and the Digital
Library of the Caribbean.
These systems were selected after a preliminary review that eliminated systems that were already
known and verified as not meeting the critical requirements for a common digital library system.
These were eliminated and are not under consideration for the primary system: CONTENTDM;
DigiTool; Digital Commons/Bepress; Dspace with/without Manakin; Fedora with Fez; and Luna.
These are the Companion Tools selected to be reviewed in the report:
 MANGO
 Open Journal Systems (OJS)
 Omeka
2. Digital Initiatives & Services
Open Access, Scholarly Communication & IRs
DISC is discussing ways to collaborate on Scholarly Communication initiatives, Open Access week,
and Open Access.
FCLA’s production server supporting Open Journal Systems is now hosting: back issues of IEICE
publications and the six scholarly journals previously in DLXS; FAU’s the Florida Geographer (the
first journal to be published natively in OJS); and the newest issue of UF’s African Studies Quarterly
is being created in OJS.
ETDs & ETD Conference
Several DISC participants presented at the US ETDA Conference.
3. Collaboration: Special Collections & Metadata Subcommittees
Chairs of DISC and the Special Collections Subcommittee (SCS) have attended each other’s calls, are
on the other’s email lists, and are discussing avenues for collaboration. As requested by SCS, DISC is
working on developing technical guidelines for SUL use in handling born digital materials. A joint
DISC+SCS call will be held on June 15 at 1pm.
4. Centralized Digital Services
a) Florida Digital Archive (http://fclaweb.fcla.edu/FDA_landing_page)
Many DISC members participate in the FDA Affiliates’ calls, held every two months. Recent
updates are the release of DAITSS 2.
b) PALMM migration
The PALMM migration from DLXS to DigiTool is complete. DLXS has been retired, resulting in
a semi-annual savings of $1,300 in hardware maintenance. All PURLs for items previously in
PALMM now link to DigiTool and the exact/full redirect will be complete soon.