DSpace 9.0 is now available!
Holger Lenz
We are pleased to announce the release of DSpace 9.0! This major release provides new features, performance improvements and bug fixes to the DSpace platform.
New and improved features include:
OpenAlex integration. DSpace now supports importing content (via MyDSpace) from OpenAlex.org. The DSpace Publication Claim feature also now supports importing Publications related to a Researcher Profiles, provided that the profile has an OpenAlex ID. (Donated by 4Science and University of Cambridge with additional funding from the Vietsch Foundation)
Support for tracking usage statistics via Matomo (a GDPR-compliant, Google Analytics alternative). DSpace can now integrate with Matomo Analytics, in order to track usage statistics, search statistics and downloads. This integration requires an existing Matomo account or instance. (Donated by 4Science with additional funding from University of Maryland )
ORCID Login flow is improved. Users logging in via ORCID can now merge their ORCID login with an existing DSpace login. Users can also login via ORCID without sharing their email from their ORCID account to DSpace. (Donated by 4Science and Lyrasis with additional funding from ORCID's Global Participation Fund)
Support for SAML authentication. DSpace now includes a SAML Authentication Plugin, which can be configured to allow your DSpace site to use an external SAML IdP. (Donated by DSpaceDirect)
Request a Copy now supports sending a secure download link for larger files. Files under a (configurable) size threshold are still attached in requests. But, larger files now send a secure (auto-expiring) link to allow the requester to download the file. ALTCHA captcha protection is also now supported for Request a Copy. (Built by The Library Code, funded by Technische Universität Berlin)
Health page now includes an "SEO" validation check. A basic check of your DSpace site's Search Engine Optimization is now available on your Health page (/health) in the Admin sidebar. This SEO report checks that your sitemap is visible, your robots.txt is visible and that you have SSR (Server Side Rendering) enabled. (Donated by Atmire)
Embargo release dates for embargoed files are now displayed on the Item page. The user interface includes a new "showAccessStatuses" configuration for bitstreams on the Item page. When enabled, all embargoed files will display a badge (on the Item page) which contains the date the embargo expires. (Donated by Université Laval)
Support for Geospatial maps, including browsing and searching. Items or Entities including geospatial data can now (optionally) embed a map of the location on their Item page, and be searchable and browsable via a new geospatial map viewer. (Donated by The Library Code)
The default tab on Community/Collection pages is now configurable. By default it will still be the "Search" tab, but it can be modified using the new "defaultBrowseTab" setting under the "community" or "collection" configurations in your config.*.yml. (Donated by Abel Gomez)
Accessibility Settings can be customized by users. Basic accessibility settings like Notification (popup) timeouts and ARIA Live Region timeouts can now be customized by each user of your site via the "Accessibility Settings" link in the footer. This allows users more control over how long confirmation and error messages are displayed. (Donated by Atmire)
This list has been abbreviated. Additional new features are listed in the Release Notes
Breaking Changes
We include a “Breaking Changes” section to the Release Notes to notify you of major changes which may impact your upgrade. Please visit the Release Notes for the full details.
A few key breaking changes to be aware of in DSpace 9.0:
Frontend now runs on Angular 18 (requiring Angular Control Flow Syntax) and is updated to use Bootstrap 5 styles (as version 4 is only under commercial support).
Frontend is now built via “npm” instead of “yarn”, which is one less dependency.
On the backend, Apache Solr 9 is now required (as version 8 is end-of-life).
Other Major Updates and Improvements
Search filters now include an option to filter by “Access Type” (e.g. open access, metadata only, etc) (Donated by Paulo Graça)
RSS/Atom feeds are now available for search results (Donated by Atmire)
Performance and stability improvements were made to indexing, export tools, OpenSearch and other areas of the application.
Accessibility fixes/improvements were made to improve keyboard navigation, screen reader access, small screen display, etc.
Numerous other bug fixes and improvements, especially to the submission process and administrative tools. See the Release Notes for details.
New and improved Language support
Catalan (Català) language updates donated by Toni Prieto
French (Français) language updates donated by Pierre Lasou and Carolyn Sullivan
German (Deutsch) language updates donated by The Library Code
Hindi (हिंदी) language updates donated by DSquare Technologies
Polish (Polski) language updates donated by PCG Academia
Portuguese (Português) language updates donated by Ricardo Saraiva and Paulo Graça
A total of 89 individuals contributed to 9.0, with major institutional contributions coming from 4Science, Atmire and The Library Code. Over 400,000 lines of code were changed in this release.
For a full list of changes and contributors in 9.0, see our Release Notes.
Would you like to contribute towards our next major release (10.0)?
DSpace 10.0 will be released in 2026. While the scope of this release is still being finalized, we welcome contributions from anyone. Contributions may take the form of:
Contributing money to our DSpace Development Fund - All funds go directly towards development in the next release, and you will be acknowledged on our DSpace Development Fund page.
Contributing code - As a volunteer developer you can determine which issue ticket you’d like to work on. Join our weekly developer meetings or get in touch with Tim Donohue if you have any questions.