NEWS RELEASE: Fedora Commons and DSpace Foundation Join Together to Create DuraSpace™

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2009
Contact: Carol Minton Morris, clt6@cornell.edu, (607) 255-2702
Contact: Michele Kimpton, michele@dspace.org
Contact: Sandy Payette, spayette@fedora-commons.org

Fedora Commons and DSpace Foundation Join Together to Create  
DuraSpace™ Organization

Ithaca, NY, Boston, MA --- Fedora Commons and the DSpace Foundation,  
two of the largest providers of open source software for managing and  
providing access to digital content, have announced today that they  
will join their organizations to pursue a common mission.  Jointly,  
they will provide leadership and innovation in open source  
technologies for global communities who manage, preserve, and provide  
access to digital content.

The joined organization, named “DuraSpace,” will sustain and grow its  
flagship repository platforms - Fedora and DSpace.  DuraSpace will  
also expand its portfolio by offering new technologies and services  
that respond to the dynamic environment of the Web and to new  
requirements from existing and future users.  DuraSpace will focus on  
supporting existing communities and will also engage a larger and more  
diverse group of stakeholders in support of its not-for-profit  
mission.  The organization will be led by an executive team consisting  
of Sandy Payette (Chief Executive Officer), Michele Kimpton (Chief  
Business Officer), and Brad McLean (Chief Technology Officer) and will  
operate out of offices in Ithaca, NY and Cambridge, MA.
“This is a great development,” said Clifford Lynch, Executive Director  
of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI).  “It will focus  
resources and talent in a way that should really accelerate progress  
in areas critical to the research, education, and cultural memory  
communities.  The new emphasis on distributed reliable storage  
infrastructure services and their integration with repositories is  
particularly timely. ”

Together Fedora and DSpace make up the largest market share of open  
repositories worldwide, serving over 700 institutions.  These include  
organizations committed to the use of open source software solutions  
for the dissemination and preservation of academic, scientific, and  
cultural digital content.

  “The joining of DSpace and Fedora Commons is a watershed event for  
libraries, specifically, and higher education, more generally,” said  
James Hilton, CIO of the University of Virginia.  “Separately, these  
two organizations operated with similar missions and a shared  
commitment to developing and supporting open technologies.  By  
bringing together the technical, financial, and community-based  
resources of the two organizations, their communities gain a robust  
organization focused on solving the many challenges involved in  
storing, curating, and preserving digital data and scholarship,” he  
said.
New Products

DuraSpace will continue to support its existing software platforms,  
DSpace and Fedora, as well as expand its offerings to support the  
needs of global information communities.  The first new technology to  
emerge will be a Web-based service named “DuraCloud.”  DuraCloud is a  
hosted service that takes advantage of the cost efficiencies of cloud  
storage and cloud computing, while adding value to help ensure  
longevity and re-use of digital content.  The DuraSpace organization  
is developing partnerships with commercial cloud providers who offer  
both storage and computing capabilities.

The DuraCloud service will be run by the DuraSpace organization.  Its  
target audiences are organizations responsible for digital  
preservation and groups creating shared spaces for access and re-use  
of digital content.  DuraCloud will be accessible directly as a Web  
service and also via plug-ins to digital repositories including Fedora  
and DSpace.  The software developed to support the DuraCloud service  
will be made available as open source.  An early release of DuraCloud  
will be available for selected pilot partners in Fall 2009.

Key Benefits of the DuraSpace Organization

DuraSpace will support both DSpace and Fedora by working closely with  
both communities and, when possible, develop synergistic technologies,  
services, and programs that increase interoperability of the two  
platforms.  DuraSpace will also support other open source software  
projects including the Mulgara semantic store, a scalable RDF database.

DuraSpace will pursue a mission that extends beyond these existing  
software platforms.  This broader mission will include developing open  
technologies and services for the communities that have developed  
around these two platforms.  The organization will also reach out to  
new communities who manage, preserve, and provide access to digital  
content.

DuraSpace will amplify the value of each individual organization,  
enabling it to sustain a larger community.  With both organizations  
working in unison, there can be significant economies of scale,  
synergies in developing open technologies and services, and a strong  
position for long-term sustainability.

Learn More about DuraSpace

DuraSpace will be represented at the Fourth Annual International  
Conference on Open Repositories (http://openrepositories.org/).   
Please check the schedule and visit the Fedora Commons and DSpace  
information tables at the conference to learn more.

More information is available at the DuraSpace website (http://duraspace.org/ 
), including Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
About Fedora Commons

Fedora Commons (http://fedora-commons.org/) was established in 2007 as  
a not-for-profit organization and the home of the Fedora repository  
software and related open source projects.  Fedora is a robust,  
integrated, repository system that enables storage, access and  
management for virtually any kind of digital content.  The Flexible  
Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (Fedora) was  
originally designed by Sandy Payette and colleagues at Cornell  
University and was established as an open source project in 2001 by  
Cornell and the University of Virginia.  Fedora has a large  
international user community and is installed worldwide at  
universities, libraries, research institutions, cultural  
organizations, and corporations.  For more information contact  
Thornton Staples, Director of Community Outreach and Alliances at tstaples@fedora-commons.org 
, or Chris Wilper, Technical Lead at cwilper@fedora-commons.org.  Also  
see: http://fedora-commons.org/confluence/x/KINB
About DSpace Foundation

The DSpace Foundation (http://dspace.org/) was formed in 2007 to  
support the growing global community of institutions using DSpace open  
source software to manage scholarly works in a digital repository.   
DSpace was jointly developed in 2002 by Hewlett-Packard and the MIT  
Libraries.  Today, there are over more than 500 organizations  
worldwide using the software to manage, preserve, and share their  
scholarly output.  To learn more about DSpace and its community of  
users visit www.dspace.org or contact Valorie Hollister, Community  
Outreach Manager at val@dspace.org.