Applying Open Storage to Institutional Repositories

Repository interoperability and the capability to support preservation can be enhanced by introducing a storage layer that is independent of repository software. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are largely characterized by ‘openness’, that is, most are based on open source software, conform with the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and aim to provide open access to content and data. We introduce a new ‘open’ approach to repositories: open storage combines open source software with standard hardware storage architectures. Examples include platforms provided by Sun Microsystems, which we use in this work. The paper will describe how the open storage approach has been allied to the OAI framework for Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE) to enable repositories managed with different softwares to share and copy data more easily and to be provided with extra services such as preservation services