On Wednesday 20th August Information Services staff will be upgrading the DSpace software that underpins the University’s Institutional Repository, STORRE (http://storre.stir.ac.uk/) from DSpace v1.6 to DSpace v4.1. This is a major upgrade and, due to the amount of local customisations to the Open Source DSpace software that we have carried out at Stirling, it can’t be done as a simple “in place” upgrade. Instead we have set up a brand new STORRE server using all the latest underlying system components and running DSpace v4.1, to which we have re-applied all our existing local customisations (and a few new ones!). When we upgrade, this will be done by migrating all the existing data and current services offered by STORRE over to the new system.
It is hoped that a basic version of the new STORRE based on DSpace v4.1 will be back up and running by 9am, but work will continue on the system throughout the morning, rebuilding all the underlying indices and switching all the internal and external integrations and other services over to the new system. Therefore there may be periods of poor performance (e.g. whilst the server is re-indexing all the content), or occasional periods of unavailability whilst the server is rebooted (e.g. after updating configuration files relating to integrations or external services). Obviously we will do everything in our power to minimise the impact of this ongoing work on end users and any periods of unavailability will also be kept to a minimum. If everything goes to plan we hope to have all this work completed by lunchtime on Wednesday 30th August at the latest.
New features and functionality
The new STORRE will bring a raft of new features and functionality. The main ones that users will notice are a new improved user interface and a new (and much improved) Browse and Search system which includes Faceted Browsing and Searching. The STORRE email system has also been modified so that STORRE will now send out new “Submission Accepted” emails to end users when their Publications are successfully exported from RMS to STORRE, and emails from STORRE will also include information on any embargo that has been applied to the item. Integration with various external Search services have also been improved, which, amongst other things, should improve the Google Page Ranking of STORRE items returned when searching Google (or Google Scholar). More information on the new version of STORRE can be found in the recent ISSUE article: http://intranet.stir.ac.uk/issue/ISSUE97_July2014.pdf.
Michael White
Joint STORRE Manager/STORRE Developer