CST Interoperability Project Update

[Bridget Almas]

Dear DSpace Community,

I’m pleased to share the news that we have successfully completed the first phase of the CST Interoperability Project. We have developed 6 technical specifications for interoperability features or solutions for the 5 Community Supported Technologies (CSTs) in the Lyrasis Organizational Home: ArchivesSpace, CollectionSpace, DSpace, Fedora and VIVO.

Please see Jess Farrell’s blog post for full details on what has been specified and the process that was followed. I’m so grateful to Jess and her teammate, Ryan Morrison-Westphal, for their excellent work on this ambitious project.

As you may recall, the development of these community-informed specifications is just the first phase of the project that has been funded by the Lyrasis CST Growth Fund. The next phase, taking place between now and the end of June, 2028, will be to implement the solutions that have been specified. Once implemented, and where applicable, Lyrasis will submit corresponding code to the communities for their review and possible acceptance into the core codebases.  Not all of the solutions involve updates to each of the applications, as, where possible, they take advantage of already existing APIs and features.  

Here’s a quick summary of the specifications, their core user stories and the benefitting communities.

Specification: Integration Scenario Registry

User Story: My institution has adopted or is considering adopting [ application name ]. I would like to know how to integrate it with [other application(s)].

Community Impact: Fedora, DSpace, VIVO, ArchivesSpace, CollectionSpace

Specification: VIVO SWORD Deposit

User Story: As a VIVO user, when I add a publication to my VIVO profile I want to deposit the publication in my institutional repository and link to it from my VIVO profile.

Community Impact: VIVO and DSpace

Specification: ArchivesSpace SWORD Deposit 

User Story: As an ArchivesSpace User, I want to deposit a file or folder of files into an institutional repository, digital library, or preservation system and link to it in a new ArchivesSpace digital object record(s).

Community Impact: ArchivesSpace and DSpace

Specification: ArchivesSpace<>DSpace Digital Object Linking

User Story: As an ArchivesSpace User, when I am editing an Archival Object or Resource in ArchivesSpace, I want to search for an item or a collection of related items in DSpace and add their link(s) to corresponding ArchivesSpace digital object record(s).

Community Impact: ArchivesSpace and DSpace

Specification: OAI-PMH for CollectionSpace

User Story: As an administrator of CollectionSpace I would like to make my CollectionSpace records and digital content available to my institution’s OAI-PMH compliant discovery system.

Community Impact: CollectionSpace

Specification: Shared Discovery for CollectionSpace and ArchivesSpace

User Story: As an administrator of both CollectionSpace and ArchivesSpace, I want to offer a single search interface for data from both so that users can search for more historical collections in one place. As a user of a shared discovery platform containing records from both CollectionSpace and ArchivesSpace, I want to conduct a search and bring up relevant records from each.

Community Impact: CollectionSpace and ArchivesSpace

I expect to issue RFPs this fall for at least the two SWORD Deposit specifications and the ArchivesSpace/DSpace Digital Object Linking, so stay tuned!

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Best,

Bridget