STARGATE extension

The STARGATE project received a brief extension.

Aim

The Stargate project's primary aim was to lower the technical barriers to the implementation of OAI-compliant repositories, thereby enabling small publishers of electronic resources to participate more readily in OAI-based disclosure and delivery services.

This project extension enhances the impact of Stargate and supports its recommendations. It has examined in more detail the requirements of the Static Repository Gateway infrastructure, by documenting its deployment, and by presenting informed estimates for the maintenance and running of such a service by the publishing community. This infrastructure is a precondition of the use of Static Repositories.

This work followed on directly from the project’s second recommendation (Stargate Final Report (2006), p 24):

“The publishing community, in so far as it has a communal interest in OAI exposure, should consider funding a static repository gateway with some degree of service guarantee. It would support the development of publisher-specific services and allow a degree of branding to be attached to the metadata provided therein. At this stage, it is unclear who would host or support this but there are a number of companies who already provide technical services to the sector (the gateway software required is open source, stable, and complete).”

The project extension supports the publishing community’s assessment of the viability of Static Repository technology. It also informs other communities about the costs involved in running Static Repository Gateways.

Objectives

The project created a demonstration Static Repository Gateway for the publishing community and documented the process. This involved:

Setting up a web server

Setting up a Gateway

Branding/ customising the look and feel of the Gateway (as far as possible)

Documenting and explaining the above process

The project will also investigated the cultural preconditions and financial cost of setting up and running a Static Repository Gateway. This entailed:

Estimating the set-up costs of a Gateway

Estimating the maintenance and running costs of a Gateway

Investigating, as far as possible, the operating conditions of existing Gateways

Providing recommendations to the publishing community

Outputs

Static Repository Gateway Software Installation (Version1.1)

Static Repository Gateway Branding and Customisation (Version1.0)

Overview of existing Static Repository Gateways (Version1.0)

Stargate Extension Final Report (Version1.1)