I think repositories are a place to store things. I've never signed
up to the idea that they are a set of services, except that a
repository might be thought to be capable of supporting three
essential services: ingest (deposit), keep-safe and access (use). Of
course, for a digital/network repository each of those may have
multiple interpretation: typically m2m as well as hci for the ingest
and access, say. At least that is how we conceived the minimally
sufficient functionality for Jorum. Keep-safe also needs some
interpretation.
Peter
ps if this doesnt hit the list, pl forward.
On 12 Mar 2009, at 15:29, Chris Rusbridge wrote:
> My earlier note about how the R word was mostly being used for
> something else, and in particular for source code version control
> repositories, has been swirling around in the back of my brain for
> a few days, bumping into other stuff. In particular, I began to
> wonder whether there are elements of the typical source code
> repository that we could usefully use for our repositories. Now
> this thought is neither new nor original; I remember commenting in
> a blog post in August last year on Peter Murray-Rust's epiphany
> from April 2007 (http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=259)
> that SourceForge was a repository. But I don't think I've seen the
> ideas contrasted yet, say in the context of what IRs could usefully
> take from source code repositories.
>
> A lot of what goes into source code repositories is about managing
> change: keeping track of versions, and ensuring that separate
> people are not changing the same element at the same time. There
> are also presumably sophisticated facilities for constructing what
> one might call derivative products (compiled versions, libraries,
> etc; it's a long time since I used one of these things in
> production!).
>
> IRs and related repositories have traditionally not been about
> change; they tend to be about maintaining a static version (I won't
> say "preserving", as it appears some object to that idea). However,
> the idea of moving the repository upstream into the researcher's
> workflow, as in the idea of a Research Repository System (eg http://
> digitalcuration.blogspot.com/2008/07/negative-click-positive-value-
> research.html). This does imply managing change much more. Besides,
> we're beginning to be troubled by multiple version problems, and we
> certainly have derivative products (from simple Word -> PDF
> transformations, to more unclear pre-print -> post-print
> relationships).
>
> So my question is: has this comparison of IR platforms to source
> code repository systems been done, or is anyone doing it?
>
> --
> Chris Rusbridge
> Director, Digital Curation Centre
> Email: [log in to unmask] Phone 0131 6513823
> University of Edinburgh
> Appleton Tower, Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9LE
>
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>
>
> On 10 Mar 2009, at 17:44, Chris Rusbridge wrote:
>
>> I have [a twitter search] for "Repository OR Repositories". I just
>> did a quick count; with around 160 tweets found in the past 2 days
>> containing one of those words, only 14 had anything to do with the
>> sort of repositories this list is interested in!
>>>
>>
>> Most of the rest appear to be to do with SVN and git etc version
>> control repositories. Quite a lot appear to be the simple
>> dictionary meaning of places to store something.
>>
>> I hadn't quite realised how much we are overloading someone else's
>> vocabulary with the R-word!
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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