In June 2023, Texas Digital Library began upgrading its members’ hosted digital repositories to DSpace 7.6, a major new release of the world’s platform of choice for open digital repositories.
About DSpace 7
DSpace 7 marks a major evolution in the DSpace repository platform, moving it into a modern web architecture. The DSpace 7.0 release alone was the largest in the application’s history, with subsequent point releases (up to 7.6) continuing to add functionality and performance improvements. Among other things, DSpace 7 includes:
- A new User Interface based on Angular (to replace XMLUI and JSPUI)
- A refactored/enhanced REST API (using modern REST best practices)
- Redesigned submissions and workflows
- A new Configurable Entities object model, which allows for the creation of new “typed” Items, and storing relationships between Items
- Improved compliance with web accessibility guidelines
DSpace 7 Upgrades Task Force
Texas Digital Library began upgrading production repositories in June following a months-long testing and documentation project in collaboration with the DSpace 7 Upgrades Task Force. This group tested the new code in the TDL hosting environment and developed documentation to help our community of users learn about the updated application. TDL’s Digital Librarian Ima Oduok led work to develop extensive end-user documentation for DSpace 7.
Upgrades Schedule
Senior software engineer Nicholas Woodward leads the upgrades project, which began in June and will conclude in November 2023.
Additional information about the project to upgrade TDL-hosted repositories is available in the TDL Wiki:
The DSpace Global Community
DSpace is a software application, but it is also a community — one of the largest of its kind representing users around the world for more than 20 years. Lyrasis serves as the organizational home for DSpace.
Texas Digital Library supports the on-going development of DSpace as a Platinum member of this community, contributing financially and in-kind to ensure that the application not only continues to meet the needs of its consortial membership, but also that it remains a sustainable and vital part of the global open infrastructure supporting Open Access.
Questions? Please contact TDL at info@tdl.org.