This study is meant for institutional repository managers, service providers, repository software developers and generally, all players taking an active part in the creation of the digital repository infrastructure for e-research and e-learning. It reviews the current standards, protocols and applications in the domain of digital repositories. Special attention is being paid to the interoperability of repositories to enhance the exchange of data in repositories. It aims to stimulate discussion about these topics and supports initiatives for the integration of and, where needed, development of new standards. The authors also take a look at the nearby future: which steps have to be taken now in order to comply with future demands?

Emerging Standards for Enhanced Publications and Repository Technology serves as a technology watch on the rapidly evolving world of digital publication. It provides an up-to-date overview of technical issues, underlying the development of universally accessible publications, their elemental components and linked information. More specifically it deals with questions as how to bring together the communities of the Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF). Case studies like EGEE, DILIGENT and DRIVER are analyzed, as well as implementations in projects in Ireland, Denmark and The Netherlands. Interoperability is the keyword in this context and this book introduces to new standards and concepts used in the design of envelopes and packages, overlays and feeds, embedding, publishing formats and Web services and service-oriented architecture. It is a must-read for quick and comprehensive orientation.

The inventory study investigates the current state of digital repositories for research output in the European Union, with the goal of identifying the next steps to stimulate an infrastructure for digital repositories at a European level. It is part of the EU-financed DRIVER project, or Digital Repositories Infrastructure Vision for European Research, which aims to create a knowledge base for European research.

The Driver’s Guide is a practical guide for repository managers and institutions who want to build their own repository.

It is widely acknowledged that a common knowledge base for European research is necessary. Research repositories are an important innovation to the scientific information infrastructure. In 2006, digital repositories in the 27 countries of the European were surveyed, covering 114 repositories from 17 European countries. In follow-up, this book presents the results of the 2008 survey. It shows an increasing number of respondents, but also a further diversification in the character of a repository. Repositories may be institutional or thematically based, and as such non-institutional as well. 178 Institutional research repositories and 14 thematic and other noninstitutional repositories from 22 European countries took part actively. European practices should be harmonized and the development of state-of-the-art technology facilitated. Authors, institutes and information users are stakeholders in this process. In presenting a state-of the art of developments, this book is a valuable guide for them in developing their policy on research repositories without losing contact with others. The ongoing process of widespread and diversification of digital repositories puts urgency on coherent approach, as a basic feature of repositories is the retrievability of information that may be dispersed over many of them. Continued monitoring of developments will be necessary.

The traditional publication will be overhauled by the ‘Enhanced Publication’. This is a publication that is enhanced with research data, extra materials, post publication data, and database records. It has an object-based structure with explicit links between the objects. In this book a state-of-the-art overview is given of the structural elements of an Enhanced Publication, as well as publication models, interrelationship and repository issues. The use of Enhanced Publications evokes questions on object models and functionalities. In-depth study is made of these subjects. More practically, a sample is given of datasets together with a demonstrator-project. In the final section, this book deals with long-term preservation issues, linking to the developments of digital repositories that are studied in other books in this series.

Digital Scholarship 2009 includes four bibliographies: the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2009 Annual Edition, the Institutional Repository Bibliography, the Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, and the Google Book Search Bibliography. The longest bibliography, the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2009 Annual Edition, presents selected English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been published between 1990 and 2009; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included. Peter Jacso said in ONLINE (vol. 27, no. 3 2003, pp. 73-76): "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them--providing the ideal quality control. . . . The selection of items is impeccable. I have yet to find journal articles irrelevant to the scope of the bibliography. SEP could be used as a benchmark in evaluating abstracting/indexing databases that proudly claim to have coverage of electronic publishing, but do not come close to SEP."