A Little Sweat Goes a Long WayOr: Building a Community-Driven Digital Asset Management System for Museums

Stefano Cossu, Director of Application Services – The Art Institute of ChicagoDavid Wilcox, Fedora Product Manager – Duraspace

The Fedora Challenge

Initial Status (2013)CITI: Custom-built Collection Management System (est. 1990)

Several other applications relying on CITI

CITI handles images and other files for collection items

Our requirements:

A dedicated system to preserve, manage and publish digital assets

A place for all collection-related documents

Seamless UX and integration with live CITI data

Handling of complex production workflows

No precedent for museumsNot a “turnkey” solutionCompletely new concepts and technologiesNew version in alpha stage

All bad selling points

A Little Sweat? Not Really.

Approach #1 (And Why It Did Not Work)Fedora does nearly everything

Fedora 4 focuses on a minimal feature set to serve a specific role in a larger architecture

Fork off code base, contribute back later if relevantCreates bloatware and one-off implementations hard to work collaboratively

with

Develop custom service layer, API and front endHave you ever tried that? It is a lot of work!

Approach #2 (A Year Later)Fedora is only a part of the architecture

Clear role separation, aligned with other implementers

Use vanilla Fedora codeBuild additional functionality outside of Fedora using specialized technologies

maintained by someone else

Use a shared project for business layer and front end (Hydra) and customize that to fit our workflows

This takes a great deal of work off of our plate

The PlanDesign and Research: 1 year

Final Design: December 2014

Basic Framework: 1 yearBeta1: December 2015

Production, limited adoption: 6 months1.0: June 2016

Full-scale adoption: 6 months1.1: December 2016

Total: 3 years

Fedora Beyond The Code

Fedora Facts Managed by DuraSpace (not-for-profit)Funded by the communityCollaboratively developed by the communitySupported by 2 full-time staff members (not developers)

Fedora CommittersBen Armintor, Columbia University

Chris Beer, Stanford University

Aaron Coburn, Amherst College

Esmé Cowles, Princeton University

Osman Din, Yale University

Mike Durbin, University of Virginia

Nick Ruest, York University

Adam Soroka, University of Virginia

Jared Whiklo, University of Manitoba

Andrew Woods, DuraSpace

Fedora Leadership GroupJulie Allinson, University of York

Chris Awre, University of Hull

Rob Cartolano, Columbia University

Aaron Choate, University of Texas

Tom Cramer, Stanford University

Stefano Cossu, Art Institute of Chicago

Dan Coughlin, Penn State University

Jon Dunn, Indiana University

Sarah Fredline, University of NSW

Declan Fleming, UCSD

Neil Jefferies, University of Oxford

Tom Murphy, ICPSR

Robin Ruggaber, University of Virginia

Glen Robson, National Library of Wales

Dan Santamaria, Tufts University

Kelcy Shepherd, Amherst College

Steve Marks, University of Toronto

Sandy Payette, Cornell University

Jim Tuttle, Duke University

Keith Webster, Carnegie Mellon

Evviva Weinraub, Northwestern University

Maurice York, University of Michigan

Patrick Yott, Northeastern University

Community-Driven Feature DevelopmentUse cases are gathered from the communityPeople with common interests form groupsGroups gather requirements, implement, and test new features

Hydra + IslandoraPopular frameworks based on FedoraProvide search, discovery, theming, workflows, and moreCollaboration between members of all three communitiesHydra-in-a-Box provides a turn-key solution

Working Together Toward InteroperabilityAdopting common, open standardsIntegrating specialized components using common patternsLeveraging linked data best practices

Fedora For Museums

Lessons Learned While Building LAKEMaybe we are not that special

Some needs can be adapted to the existing framework, not the other way around

Don't write code if we don't have toAnd when we have to, ask around if somebody is doing the same thing

Others don't need to go through thisShare experience and code; create communities; Hydra In A Box as a potential low-

barrier approach to a museum-focused ecosystem

Added Values Learned Underway (Meta-Features)Community

The backbone of healthy software

Ease of integrationYour DAMS is not the Almighty

TransparencyOpen Source, Open Agenda, Open Pockets

An Alternative Way to Produce SoftwareCommunity Source is different than just Open Source

And sometimes a very different approach

Open Source ≠ freeBut open governance means that you know where your money is going

Shift resources' focusLess coding hours, more community engagement and coordination

Thank YouMore info: http://fedorarepository.org http://hydrainabox.projecthydra.org

Ping us:dwilcox@duraspace.org scossu@artic.edu