NEWS RELEASE: DSpace 1.6 Available Now!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--PLEASE REDISTRIBUTE

March 3, 2010

Contact: Valorie Hollister; Tim Donohue

Ready to Go: DSpace 1.6 is Now Available

Ithaca, NY Today the DuraSpace organization announced the long-awaited  
release of DSpace 1.6, the popular turn-key open source application  
for managing and providing access to digital content used to create  
more than 800 repository instances worldwide. The release of DSpace  
1.6 was led by Stuart Lewis, community release manager and IT  
Innovations analyst and developer at the University of Auckland  
Library. Lewis worked closely with DSpace developers, community  
members and DuraSpace staff to make the best possible version of  
DSpace 1.6 publicly available.

Download DSpace 1.6 here: http://www.dspace.org/current-release/latest-release/

Bram Luyten, @mire (http://atmire.com/), who is an active DSpace  
community member commented, "Both from an end-user perspective, as  
well as the administrator side of things, this release is a great leap  
forward."

Community-requested features in the new release include an enhanced  
statistics package which provides more information about how your  
repository is being used, an embargo facility so items can be kept  
dark for a period of time, and a batch metadata editing tool which can  
be used to change, add, find/replace metadata as well as facilitate  
mass moves, re-order values or add new items in bulk. And there's more  
such as authority control which contains an integration with the  
Sherpa Romeo Service for publisher names, as well as the Library of  
Congress Nameservice. Other new features include:

     •Delegated administration
     •OpenSearch
     •Command launcher
     •OAI-PMH harvesting of items from remote repositories
     •Configurable OAI-PMH dublin core output
     •Move item functionality in XMLUI
     •If-Modified-Since / Last-Modified header support in XMLUI
     •Change to logging behaviour to ensure better log retention and  
management
     •Update to the latest handle server library
     •Ability to perform batch imports and exports from zip files of  
items
     •New test scripts to test database and email settings
     •Ability to set legal jurisdiction in creative commons licensing

Ina Smith, University of Stellenbosch Repository Manager, explains  
what the release of DSpace 1.6 will mean for her institution:

"The University of Stellenbosch (www.sun.ac.za), one of the top  
research institutions on the African continent, has been using DSpace  
since 2007. We take the digital preservation of our most valuable  
asset – i.e. research output by our researchers – very seriously. Our  
focus on digital preservation made DSpace an obvious choice as a  
platform to host our varied digital assets. As part of our digital  
preservation management strategy we regard upgrading to DSpace 1.6 as  
a given, thereby guaranteeing continued access to digital objects. At  
the same time various instances of DSpace running at our institution  
will be integrated into this new DSpace version. We are proud to be  
one of the early adopters of DSpace 1.6, and together with add-on’s  
obtained from @mire are looking forward to providing new functionality  
to benefit our researchers and the rest of the international research  
community. Thank you to the DSpace community for the work you do, and  
for sharing DSpace with those who do not necessarily have expertise  
and resources. You can visit the ‘new’ repository of the University of  
Stellenbosch – SUNScholar – at scholar.sun.ac.za. Currently DSpace is  
used by 12 South African institutions (http://ir.sun.ac.za/wiki/index.php/List 
), which includes the major research institutions."

More Information About DSpace 1.6
• Join Stuart Lewis, the DSpace 1.6 community release manager, who  
will offer an overview of  the lastest release and how it can help you  
manage your repository. This free DuraSpace/SPARC "All About  
Repositories" web seminar will highlight new Fedora 3.3 and DSpace 1.6  
features on March 17, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. ET. Register for the web  
seminar here: http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/ 
event_registration.shtml.

• Lewis has published a blog post explaining what key changes and  
improvements in DSpace 1.6 will mean for you.  Read the post here: http://blog.stuartlewis.com/2010/02/10/dspace-1-6-what-will-be-in-it-for-me/ 
.

• The February issue of the DSpace Newsletter features in-depth  
information about DSpace 1.6. Read the newsletter here: http://www.dspace.org/newsletter-newspace/NewSpace-Volume-3-Issue-19.html

About DSpace
DSpace (http://Dspace.org) is an out-of-the-box open source repository  
application for delivering digital content to end-users. Globally it  
is the most widely used open source repository software for  
institutional repositories and open access repositories. DSpace has  
been installed all over the world by organizations, especially  
libraries, as a way to provide access to research output, scholarly  
publications, library collections, and more. The DSpace application  
has many features and tools for managing digital content and enabling  
digital preservation. DSpace stores any type of content and offers  
built-in workflows for content submission and review. Organizations  
can easily make their digital collections available on the Web using  
DSpace's customizable end user interfaces along with many community- 
developed features and utilities.

About DuraSpace
DuraSpace (http://DuraSpace.org) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit  
organization. DuraSpace software and services are used worldwide as  
solutions for open access, institutional repositories, digital  
libraries, digital archives, data curation, virtual research  
environments, and more.  DuraSpace provides leadership and innovation  
in the use of open source and cloud-based technologies to serve  
libraries, universities, research centers, cultural heritage  
institutions, and other knowledge stewards.  The organization’s open  
source technology portfolio includes the DSpace open access repository  
application, the Fedora open repository platform, and the Mulgara  
semantic database.  DuraSpace is the home of DuraCloud, an emerging  
cloud-based service that leverages existing cloud infrastructure to  
enable durability and access to digital content.  The DuraSpace team  
includes recognized leaders and experts in the management of digital  
information.  The team works with an active and diverse international  
community committed to the durability of digital resources.

The DuraSpace technology portfolio inherently addresses the issue of  
durability of digital content.  Our values are expressed in our  
organizational byline, “open technologies for durable digital content.”