The Mission of the UCD Digital Library is to capture, curate, and manage digital cultural resources and research outputs of the University College Dublin community as well as its collaborators and partners, to preserve and sustain the usability of these assets, and to enable their broad dissemination.
UCD Digital Library refers to the digital collections and online services made available by the Library of University College Dublin. It is an archive comprising an organisation, namely, the UCD Library and particularly its Research Services and Information Technology Services divisions, and technical systems, namely, the UCD Digital Repository and its services framework. It is a curated, preservation-oriented resource that seeks to comply to internationally endorsed best practices and standards for an OAIS-compliant Trusted Digital Repository.
Resources managed by the UCD Digital Library include:
UCD Digital Library staff also offer expertise in digital content management and preservation as well as related policy matters, such as Open Access. The UCD Digital Library as a service can
The UCD Digital Library strives for interoperability with other, external repositories and databases. Collections information is currently exported to the following sites:
The UCD Digital Library' underlying infrastructure can be exploited to support "Sponsored sites"—large-scale sponsored research projects whose data are instantiated on separate web sites. For more information see "Sponsored sites."
The UCD Digital Library and Repository are a data archive in the sense defined by the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), which states that "an OAIS is an Archive, consisting of an organisation, which may be part of a larger organisation, of people and systems that has accepted the responsibility to preserve information and make it available for a Designated Community."
The UCD Digital Library and Repository are developed and suported by UCD Library, a core service provider based at University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland. It is supported by a dedicated, permanent cohort of staff in the UCD Library Research Services division, with additional supports from the Library Information Technology and Services group. It avails of additional services made available through University offices, including IT Services, the UCD Research Office, Legal and Business Affairs, etc. It provides services on behalf of a designated community of University-based cultural heritage repositories, UCD researchers, and UCD research partners active in all research domains supported by the University. It supports the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) and its designated community of Irish and international research organisations and researchers that produce and consume quantitiative microdata In addition it provides services through partnership agreements with external organisations.
Promotional activities are undertaken by UCD Library Administration, Outreach, Client Services and Research Services staff to assure knowledge and understanding of its services. These activities include dissemination of information on UCD web sites, topical promotional activities, and training classes supported by the Library's Client Services and Research Services divisions. The UCD Digital Library is also registered as a research data repository with re3data.org, an international registry of research data repositories and is represented in social media sites such as Twitter. Research data held by the UCD Digital Library is registered with international registries, including DataCite, OpenAIREplus, and the Data Citation Index.
Holds a Master of Science degree from University of Borås (Sweden) on digital libraries, a Bachelor of Arts degree from University College Dublin, and a Graduate Diploma in computing science from Griffith College Dublin.
Audrey's main role at UCD Library is the management of Cultural Heritage digital collections, several of which received external grant support. She also oversees the operational activities within the UCD Digital Library, including the development of the UCD Digital Library, as well as building and implementing its workflows and policies, copyright compliance, and the management of the UCD Digital Library team.
Audrey is also the Project Manager for the ISSDA Dataverse Project, as well as being a member of the NORF Action 2: Open Access Repository Assessment and Alignment group, the NORF National PID Roadmap group, and the Digital Scholarship Network (Ireland) group.
Holds a Master of Library and Information Studies degree, and a Master of Arts degree (Film Studies) from University College Dublin. Also holds an Associateship of the Library Association of Ireland
Órna's main role involves working mainly on the UCD Digital Library. She has responsibility for metadata policy and procedures, as well as metadata creation and cataloguing for the Digital Library. She originally joined UCD as a cataloguer, and worked extensively with UCD Research Repository, before taking up her current role in Research Services. Órna has a background in film and video production and was the Library and Special Collections Manager in the IFI Irish Film Archive.
Holds a Master of Library and Information Studies degree from University College Dublin, Master of Science degree in Computing (Information & Knowledge Management) from DIT, as well as a Higher Diploma in Computing (Software Design).
Peter's main role involves researching, developing, and managing the UCD Digital Library applications and infrastructure, as well as the related support systems. He also manages the infrastructure for the Research Repository UCD, as well as researching and developing the new application and infrastructure for the ISSDA Dataverse Project.
UCD Digital Library and Repository provide services to staff and organisational units of University College Dublin, their partners and collaborators, and other organisational entities whose data archiving and publishing requirements are in alignment with the mission.
UCD Digital Library and Repository have an explicit mission with regard to digital cultural heritage resources, including digitally reformatted instantiations of original analogue resources and information that is "born digital."
UCD Digital Library and Repository also have an explicit mission with regard to capture and preservation of research data. Research data comprises observational data, experimental data, simulated data and the computational models on which simulations are based, and documentation of research protocols, methods, and workflows. Broader definitions may also apply, such as in the definition of "dataset" offerred by DataCite, an international registry and provider of services related to research data:
Recorded information, regardless of the form or medium on which it may be recorded including writings, films, sound recordings, pictorial reproductions, drawings, designs, or other graphic representations, procedural manuals, forms, diagrams, work flow, charts, equipment descriptions, data files, data processing or computer programs (software), statistical records, and other research data.
Broadly speaking, some forms of grey literature and "data papers" may also be classified as research data (see http://www.datacite.org/sites/default/files/Business_Models_Principles_v1.0.pdf).
All research data are described with DataCite metadata, assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), via the California Digital Library's EZID service, and registered with the DataCite registry. From August 2014, research data created with support of European funding is also registered with OpenAIREplus.
UCD Digital Library and Repository have extensively documented the procedures surrounding the operational activities and services offered by it. These procedures are governed by clear policies, which align with the mission statement and meet with best practices. All operational activities and services, complemented by a robust, scalable and sustainable technical infrastructure, ensure that long term access and preservation of the digital collections, with all of their components, can be facilitated.
Policies and procedures relating to preservation, digital object curation (including acquisition and digitisation), cataloguing, copyright, and the technical infrastructure, will be available in the Publications area.
Information about the UCD Digital Library, its services, and general guidelines about digitisation projects and other related disciplines, can be found in a growing number of online guides and publicity material.
The following sections are available:
With regard to systems and procedures, the UCD Digital Library and Repository has been guided by the OAIS reference model with regard to the functional model of archival information systems (§4.1 of the guidelines). The figure below provides a graphical representation of systems and interactions with data producers, archive administrators and management, and data consumers, following the OAIS functional model:
The technical infrastructure is described more fully below, but key components include the Fedora Commons repository software, Nesstar (a software system for publishing quantitative data), and relational and semantic database services. Computational resources are hosted in part within the University College Dublin Data Centre and in part by cloud service brokers and computer service vendors that are certified EU Safe Harbour service providers. External services provide redundant storage, disaster recovery services as well as some value-added services, including data integrity audits.
UCD Digital Library and Repository follow international best practices and standards with regard to resource description and instantiation of information about the data assets it holds. These practices apply to the following kinds of metadata:
The following metadata frameworks are used:
| Type | Name | Label | Namespace | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| descriptive | DC | DC | http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd | OAI-compliant Dublin Core, schema |
| descriptive | MODS 3.4, MODS3.5 | descMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/ | Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) |
| descriptive | EAD 2002 | content | http://www.loc.gov/ead/eadschema.html | Encoded Archival Description (EAD), 2002 schema |
| descriptive | DataCite 3.0 | dataciteMetadata | http://schema.datacite.org/ | DataCite metadata, version 3.0 |
| descriptive | NUDS XML | nudsMetadata | http://nomisma.org/nuds/nuds-2014a.xsd | Numismatic Description Language, schema version 2014a |
| descriptive | DDI 2.1 | ddiMetadata | http://www.ddialliance.org/Specification/DDI-Codebook/2.1 | DDI Codebook 2.1 |
| administrative | FOXML | FOXML | https://wiki.duraspace.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=34664480 | Fedora Object XML, version 1.1 |
| structural | METS | contentMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/ | Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), version 1.1 (METS structure map) |
| technical | MIX 2.0 | technicalMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/mix/ | NISO Metadata for Images in XML Schema (MIX) |
| technical | audio metadata | technicalMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/amdvmd/audiovideoMDschemas.html | audioMD, version 2.0 schema |
| technical | document metadata | technicalMetadata | https://share.fcla.edu/FDAPublic/DAITSS/documentMD.pdf | Document Metadata: document technical metadata for digital preservation |
| technical | text metadata | technicalMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/textMD/ | textMD, version 2.2 |
| technical | video metadata | technicalMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/amdvmd/audiovideoMDschemas.html | videoMD, version 2.0 schema |
| provenance | provenance metadata | provenanceMetadata | http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/schemas.html | PREMIS schema, version 2.2 |
| rights | rights | rightsMetadata | http://hydra-collab.stanford.edu/schemas/rightsMetadata/v1 | Stanford rights metadata "schema" |
Metadata are instantiated in XML formats and are labelled in a manner consistent with the community of practice that has developed around Project Hydra.
All records created in the UCD Digital Library are described using the MODS and Dublin Core metadata schemas; archival collections are also described using the Encoded Archival Description 2002 schema (EAD2002). In addition, quantitative datasets associated with the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA) are described using the Data Documentation Initiative version 2.1 schema.
Description and encoding practices comply with internationally accepted best practices for interoperable metadata. Detailed documentation on the use of descriptive schemas is maintained by UCD Digital Library staff in an internally accessible Confluence wiki. Use of the MODS 3.5 schema in particular seeks to maximise usage of data element attributes that enable encoding of Linked Data refereneces. A locally developed metadata creation and management system, IMAD (Ingest, Metadata, and Administration Database), facilitates efficient recording of descriptive information and capture of URI references from Linked Data vocabularies referenced by the UCD Digital Library (see below, Vocabularies Referenced).
Metadata reference authoritative vocabularies wherever possible, drawing upon vocabularies developed in support of diverse communities; wherever appropriate references are made to Linked Open Vocabularies, namely, openly licensed RDFS or OWL ontologies.
Vocabularies currently referenced are:
| Namespace ID | Namespace | Description |
|---|---|---|
| http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml | Internet Media Types (MIME types) | |
| http://www.loc.gov/standards/valuelist/marccategory.html | MARC Form Category Term List | |
| http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime | ISO8601 Date and Time Formats (note) | |
| aat | http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/aat/index.html | Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus® |
| bgtchm | http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/techdocs/genre.html | Library of Congress, Basic Genre Terms for Cultural Heritage Materials |
| dbpedia | http://dbpedia.org/ | DBpedia |
| dcterms | http://purl.org/dc/terms/ | DCMI Metadata Terms |
| dctype | http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/ | DCMI Type Vocabulary |
| fast | http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/fast.html?urlm=159754 | FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) |
| foaf | http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/20140114.html | FOAF Vocabulary Specification |
| geo | http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos# | WGS84 Geo Positioning |
| geonames | http://www.geonames.org/ | Geonames geographical database |
| iso639-2 | http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2.html | ISO 639-2: Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages - Part 2: Alpha-3 Code for the Names of Languages |
| lcgtf | http://id.loc.gov/authorities/genreForms.html | Library of Congress Genre Form Headings |
| lcsh | http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html | Library of Congress Subject Headings |
| lctgm | http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/graphicMaterials.html | Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials |
| linked-data | http://linked-data-api.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/vocab/api.ttl# | Linked Data API Vocabulary |
| marcgt | http://www.loc.gov/standards/valuelist/marcgt.html | MARC Genre Term List |
| marcrelator | http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators.html | MARC Code List for Relators |
| naf | http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names.html | Library of Congress Names Authority File |
| og | http://ogp.me/ns# | Open Graph Protocol Vocabulary |
| ore | http://www.openarchives.org/ore/terms/ | OAI ORE terms vocabulary |
| premis | http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v1# | PREMIS Ontology |
| http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/preservation/eventType.html | Preservation Events | |
| rdag1 | http://rdvocab.info/Elements/ | RDA Group 1 Elements |
| rdag2 | http://rdvocab.info/ElementsGr2/ | RDA Group 2 Elements |
| rdag3 | http://rdvocab.info/ElementsGr3/ | RDA Group 3 Elements |
| rdarole | http://rdvocab.info/roles/ | RDA Roles |
| schema | http://schema.org/ | Schema.org Vocabulary |
| skos | http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core# | Simple Knowledge Organisation System |
| tgn | http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn/index.html | Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names® |
| void | http://rdfs.org/ns/void# | Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets (VoID) |
| viaf | http://www.viaf.org/ | Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) |
Administrative and technical metadata are made available as Linked Open Data in the following RDF serialisation formats via the SPARQL endpoint and Linked Data API:
Linked Data are also made available via the UCD Digital Library Web API. For further information see http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#services-api.
The UCD Digital Library and Repository is capable of storing and disseminating any type of data. For certain types of data there are preferred formats which facilitate processing, storage, and dissemination of data, assuring both useability and longer-term durability of the data. Preferred formats are:
| Data type | Preferred format | Accecptable format |
|---|---|---|
| Text documents | PDF/A, TEI | OpenDocument Text (.odt) MS Word (.doc, .docx) Rich Text File (.rtf) PDF (.pdf) |
| Plain text | Unicode TXT (.txt, ...) | Non-Unicode TXT (.txt, ...) |
| Spreadsheets | Comma-separated Values (.csv) Tab-separated Values (.tsv) |
OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) MS Excel (.xls, .xlsx) |
| Databases | ANSI SQL (.sql, …) Comma Separated Values (.csv) |
MS Access (.mdb, .accdb) dBase III or IV (.dbf) |
| Statistical Data | SPSS Portable (.por) SAS transport (.sas) STATA (.dta) |
R |
| Images (raster) | JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg) TIFF (.tif, .tiff) |
Photoshop (.psd) RAW (.raw, .dng) |
| Images (vector) | PDF/A (.pdf) Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) |
Adobe Illustrator (.ai) PostScript (.eps) PDF (.pdf) |
| Video | MPEG-2 (.mpg, .mpeg, …) MPEG-4 H264 (.mp4) Lossless AVI (.avi) QuickTime (.mov) |
|
| Audio | Broadcast WAV (.wav) | MP3 AAC (.mp3) AIFF (.aif, .aiff) |
| Computer Aided Design | AutoCAD DXF version R12 (.dxf) | AutoCAD other versions (.dwg, .dxf) |
| Geographic & Remote Sensing | GeoTIFF (.tif, .tiff) MapInfo Interchange Fomat (.mif/.mid) ESRI Shapefile (.shp + other) LAS (.las) |
GML (.gml) KML (.kml, .kz) MapInfo (.tab + other) |
UCD Digital Library and Repository assumes responsibility for discovery, access and assurance of availability of digital assets deposited by producers of the data which it holds.
UCD Digital Library provides mechanisms for browsing holdings by logical collections and via full-text search. Search interfaces are proovided via the Digital Library web site and via an OpenSearch API.
Metadata and full-text resources are indexed with the full-text faceted search engine Solr and are exposed via the UCD Digital Library web interface for interactive use.
Solr full-text search is also made available for interrogation in other contexts via the OpenSearch protocol, thereby making this powerful discovery mechanism available for potential use by sponsored sites (such as Iberian Books) and third parties in new contexts. The OpenSearch description document is available at http://data.ucd.ie/opensearchdescription.xml.
All resources in the UCD Digital Library that are registered with DataCite and can be searched via the DataCite Metadata Search interface. DataCite metadata can also be downloaded via the OAI-PMH protocol; see: http://oai.datacite.org/.
UCD Digital Library and Repository support the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, or OAI-PMH. Metatdata is made available via OAI-PMH sets representing each logical collection in the repository. The OAI-PMH endpoint is exposed at http://libucd.ucd.ie/oaiprovider/.
Exposure to internet search engines is facilitated by the use of XML Sitemaps. Discoverability by internet search engines is also enhanced by use of semantic markup, namely inclusion of Open Graph metadata and markup compliant with schema.org.
UCD Digital Library maintains a Linked Data server based on the OpenLink Virtuoso universal database. The database services are conformant to the SPARQL protocol, or SPROT. A service to enable interrogation of the database via HTTP with the SPARQL query language is exposed at http://data.ucd.ie:8890/sparql.
UCD Library is an active contributor to Europeana, the aggregator of metadata related to European cultural heritage. As noted above, DataCite 3.0 metadata is created for all objects registered with the DataCite services and that are assigned a DataCite DOI, which is in turn exposed via the DataCite Metadata Search interface. by agreement with Thomson Reuters, DataCite metadata representing research data in the UCD Digital Library are also included in the Web of Science Data Citation Index.
The UCD Digital Library exposes data services via a suite of Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, that enable functionality in the Digital Library web interface but also expose data and data services to third parties for integration into external research activities or web applications. These services complement the OpenSearch and OAI-PMH services identified above.
The following APIs are available:
| Prefix | Endpoint | Description | Documentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| geo | http://data.ucd.ie/api/geo/v1/dl/ | Geospatial Data API | http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#data-services-api-geo |
| image | http://data.ucd.ie/api/img | IIIP Image API, version 1.0 | http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#data-services-api-iiif |
| ld | http://data.ucd.ie/ld/ | Linked Data API | See: http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#data-services-api-ld |
| opensearch | http://data.ucd.ie/api/search/v1/ | OpenSearch API | http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#opensearch-api |
| quant | http://data.ucd.ie/api/quant/v1 | Quantitative Data API | http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#data-services-api-q |
| unAPI | http://digital.ucd.ie/api/unAPI | unAPI | http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#data-services-unapi |
Services exposed at http://digital.ucd.ie are enabled by a general Web API that supports interactive human- and machine-use of the UCD Digital Library. The Web API provides core functionality to support usage via conventional web browsers on both desktop and mobile platforms:
The Web API also supports HTTP content negotiation to facilitate machine-based interactions with the UCD Digital Library. Details of the Web API and APIs supporting metadata and content dissemination are available at http://digital.ucd.ie/research/#data-services.
The technical infrastructure of the UCD Digital Library and UCD Digital Repository Services are comprised of an integrated suite of open-source components widely used in the research data management and data preservation communities. A visual representation of the general software applications stack is provided below as Figure 2.
UCD Digital Library deploys the Fedora Commons digital repository, version 3.7, software for management of metadata and digital content. The conceptual foundations of fedora, its history and its support and development model are descritbed in detail at http://www.fedora-commons.org/about.
UCD Digital Library deploys the MySQL relational database management system, version 5.1.73, both as a component of the fedora services framework and for management of user metadata related to authenticated sessions, for management of Access Control Lists, and to enable authorisation of users for access to restricted resources.
The mulgara semantic store, version 2.1.13, is also deployed as part of the fedora service framework to support the fedora risearch index, which indexes RDF expressions describing relationships among objected in the repository.
Geospatial Information Services are also supported by the UCD Digital Library. A postGIS/postgreSQL database is supported via subscription by the service provider CartoDB to manage a geospatial knowledge base, geospatial references and boundary data related to resources in the UCD Digital Library and Repository, and other geospatial objects. CartoDB provides value-added services including APIs that facilitate integration of spatial information into real-time web applications and download of geospatial information in a range of common GIS formats.
UCD Digital Library deploys applications services to support specialised data management and dissemination functions. These services enable integration of advanced data presentation and download functions to end-users into both the Web user interface and APIs supported by the UCD Digital Library.
The djatoka JPEG2000 image server is deployed to enable real-time region extraction and delivery of static images in a range of formats (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, PNM, TIF, JPEG 2000) in response to user requests. It also supports URI-addressability of regions, facilitating creation of persistent references to specific manifestations of static images drawn from JPEG20000 images. djatoka supports both real-time delivery of images via the UCD Digital Library Web API and via the IIIF Image API.
Nesstar, a specialised application to support use of quantiative datasets, is also deployed by UCD Digital Library on behalf of the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA). Nesstar facilitates resource discovery, browsing of dataset metadata and variables, and download of quantitative datasets in a range of commonly used formats, including SPSS, SPSS Portable, SAS, Stata, Stata6, Stata7, and NSDData. Nesstar's services are exposed via a web interface at http://nesstar.ucd.ie/webview/; services exposed via the Nesstar REST API are also made available via a proxy quantiative data API and are integrated with the UCD Digital Library web services to enable browsing of information related to survey data.
Services that enhance identification and discoverability of digital assets are also subscribed or employed to add value to UCD Digital Library Services:
Web services are exposed via the Apache HTTP Server. Services include the web site exposed at http://digital.ucd.ie/ as well as RESTful APIs deployed on other host machines.
The web site at http://digital.ucd.ie/ also integrates a range of ubiquitously deployed code frameworks and software tools to enable a broad range of functionality and assure accessibility. These technologies include:
In addition, the Web API enables support of "sponsored sites". These are web sites that can be instantiated separately from the UCD Digital Library web interface with their own web domain. The web site created in partnership with the Iberian Book Project is an example of a sponsored site: http://iberian.ucd.ie.
UCD Digital Library utilises a combination of local and cloud storage solutions. All digital library content and metadata resides on local Netapp SAN disks located within the UCD campus data centre. These volumes are then mirrored to identical storage in the UCD Computer Centre.
UCD Digital Library integrates Duracloud services to automatically back up and preserve digital library content. Amazon S3 storage is employed to hold a primary backup copy of content which is then archived to Amazon Glacier. There exists automatic synchronisation of content between primary and secondary storage and automatic file recovery is maintained between both backup copies.
UCD Digital Library and Repository uses due diligence to ensure compliance with legal regulations and contracts, including regulations governing the protection of human subjects and informants of ethnographic studies.
