Libraries and archives grapple with what constitutes a digital repository, what should be in one and the long-term preservation and authenticity of information composed of ones and zeros. Simons and Richardson focus on the higher education and research sectors and on content in, rather than purpose of digital repositories. As institutional repositories move beyond capturing portable document format of published articles and PowerPoints of presentations, the authors explore the new types of content such as raw research data and the challenges this poses for staff development, metadata, persistent identifiers, software, exchange protocols and metrics.
While the authors are Australian librarians, they introduce metadata schemas used in other countries (most notably in the English-speaking world) and those used for non-book formats. They discuss in detail the benefits of digital object identifiers (DOI) for research data and note the difficulties in resolving name ambiguities for people and groups across countries, briefly covering Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), The Names Project, Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and the International Standard Name Identifier without recommending one system over another. When Simons and Richardson move into their chapter on exposing and sharing repository content, their roots show; they use the Australian Research Online service and the Griffith Research Hub as their case studies with a short section on Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. They conclude that chapter with thumbnail descriptions from the Web sites of 15 repository directories and discovery portals, with no evaluative commentary.
Simons and Richardson walk a fine line between explaining what issues librarians need to consider when expanding their digital repositories to include research data, and providing links to Web sites of examples that do not have persistent uniform resource locators (URLs) and may move or disappear before this book is out of print. When addressing developing and training repository teams, they outline the expertise needed but fail to say where librarians and staff could obtain the necessary training or even if library and information schools are teaching these skills.
Other than a typo on page 100 that gives a garbled URL for the Dryad Digital Repository (it should be www.datadryad.org/) and misnaming the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as Corporation of Public Broadcasting on page 77, this up-to-date, clear and well-written primer provides a practical perspective on key aspects of digital repositories and what librarians and archivists need to be thinking about as they plan to ingest new content.
