Bepress to DSpace Migration: A Case Study

The University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) approached the Texas Digital Library (TDL) in 2018 about migrating their scholarly repository from Bepress Digital Commons to a new DSpace 6.x instance hosted by TDL. In the course of this project TDL developed a workflow for the repository migration that included: using Amazon Web Services for digital object storage; developing code for preprocessing, metadata mapping, and generating DSpace item packages; and incorporating existing DSpace import tooling for repository data.

In collaboration with UNTHSC, TDL staff created a process for converting a community/collection hierarchy built in a spreadsheet to an XML-formatted structure suitable for import into DSpace. Additionally, TDL developed code to create Simple Archive Format packages for digital objects in the repository that incorporated 1) a metadata crosswalk (also built in collaboration with UNTHSC staff), 2) data about the repository harvested from its OAI-PMH feed, and 3) the metadata and digital objects themselves located in S3. Finally, TDL worked with UNTHSC staff to customize the configuration and look-and-feel of the new DSpace instance to meet their needs.

This presentation will discuss in detail our Bepress to DSpace migration from initial design, to the project execution, including successes and challenges, to the conclusion and assessment of the project deliverables. TDL will lay out our experiences from throughout the collaborative process, what we learned along the way, and offer suggestions for others considering similar migration projects.