The Thoth Archiving Network goes live at the University of Cambridge

Closing out Year 1 of the Open Book Futures project, we now have live archived books within the University of Cambridge’s DSpace repository.

https://thoth-arch.lib.cam.ac.uk/home

Cambridge University Library’s (CUL) Open Research Systems team agreed to come onboard for pilot testing of the Thoth Archiving Network during the COPIM Project (2019-2023). They’ve worked along with our developers to create, test, and maintain automated deposit from Thoth into a dedicated DSpace instance.

The team continue their work with us on DSpace repository integration into Open Book Futures (2023-2026). We’re delighted to announce that our proof-of-concept and sandbox testing work is complete, and the first deposited books are live. Full back catalogues of two open monograph publishers have recently been deposited.

The Cambridge team will collaborate with OBF and the Thoth Archiving Network over the course of the Open Book Futures project, providing:

• Provision, development and maintenance of a DSpace-based repository instance as part of the archiving network

• Exploration of advanced content models to enhance the search, discovery, and access to content in this site

• Exploration of approaches to and requirements (technical and staff) for the digital preservation of open access books

• Further contributions to CUL’s Digital Preservation Programme in the form of an exemplary use case of scholarly content that is "preservation ready", uses open and standard file formats (e.g., PDF and EPUB) and is accompanied by rich, high quality descriptive metadata.

These contributions alongside the work of the Thoth and OBF archiving & preservation teams will lead to important advancements within the network and further opportunities for development in the future.

Header image photo by Tien Nguyen via Pexels.