
Overview
The British Library worked with us to develop their Samvera-based multi-tenant Shared Research Repository in partnership with other UK cultural heritage institutions.
Jenny Basford
Repository Services Lead, British Library
After piloting an initial instance of Hyku open-source repository software for the Shared Research Repository, the British Library sponsored a second phase as a collaborative project between SoftServ and CoSector. iro.bl.uk represents a multi-tenant implementation, with discrete repositories for several cultural heritage organizations in the UK. Key work included a major data migration, custom front-end theming, aggregate cross-tenant search functionality, and integrated DOI minting and content population.
Tags
UI DesignDigital RepositoriesMonitoring & MaintenanceDevelopment SupportRequirements
Our Solution
One instance of repository software that would host multiple discreet repositories for participating institutions.
Hyku provided the perfect solution to this requirement, allowing administrators of a Hyrax-based repository software to create multiple individual repositories within. Although the repository contents and tenant-level admin capabilities are unique, Hyku also provides a higher level admin role that allows cross-tenant administration by British Library product owners. Hyku’s easily adaptable UI also facilitated custom theming for each partner repository.
In addition to tenant-level search, a shared repository landing page that provides search functionality across all tenants.
With input from the greater Samvera community, SoftServ implemented the concept of a search-only tenant in Hyku, giving the Shared Research Repository a high level landing page that aggregates search results across all repositories in the system. We also responded to a specific use case that required the ability for individual tenants to opt in or out of the aggregate search.
Integrate DataCite for DOI minting in the repository, with the ability to auto-populate based on DOI.
This requirement gave SoftServ the opportunity to work with other Samvera community institutions to align a DOI (digital object identifier) solution and share code, which was ultimately a group effort that was contributed back to core Hyku. The integration allows for minting of DOIs for new works added to the repository, as well as the ability to populate metadata for works with existing DOIs with a lookup feature.
Results
We helped the British Library develop a multi-tenant, flexible, and customizable repository to fit the needs of their partner institutions.




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