ADS+

Enhancing and Sustaining the Archaeology Data Service digital repository

Overview

ADS+ has been funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under the Digital Equipment and Database (DEDEFI) call of the 5 November 2009. The project has the twin objectives of:

i) Increasing the sustainability of the ADS, by implementing Fedora (Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture). This is a world-leading open source digital repository application which will allow the automation of many ADS curatorial functions, according to the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model (ISO 14721:2003). This will help ensure the long term preservation of all ADS digital archives, as well as making the ADS archival procedures more cost-effective

ii) Enhancing the impact of AHRC-funded digital outputs, databases and resources by improving the level of access of end users to all ADS archival holdings. Hitherto access has been constrained to collection-level. ADS+ will provide deeper and richer object-level access. The implementation of Fedora will enable cross-searching and joined-up access within nearly 300 collections of primary data, including 25 archives of AHRC-funded resource enhancement and research grants. This will not only extend the range of research activities that can be carried out by direct users of the ADS site, but also allow a much deeper level of searching and linking from external web sites

The AHRC funding will facilitate the project through the provision of dedicated staff; specifically a project management team, an applications developer to integrate Fedora with existing ADS systems and ADS curatorial staff involved with metadata generation and data cleaning and restructuring

The project runs from the 1 March 2010 for 12 months

Article

ADS+ and Fedora Commons (CSA Newsletter, April 2010)

People

• Professor Julian Richards (Principal Investigator)
  
• Dr Stuart Jeffrey (Co-Investigator)
  
• Tony Austin (Project Manager)
  
• Dr Paul Young (Applications Developer)
  
• Dr Ray Moore (Curatorial Team)
  
• Donna Page (Administrator)

Email the ADS+ project