Hydra from 35,000ft Chris Awre Hydra Europe Symposium London School of Economics, 23 rd April 2015

Hydra from 35,000ft How did Hydra come into being? Why have we developed Hydra? What can Hydra provide? Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 2

How did Hydra come into being? Three institutions: Hull, Virginia, Stanford – All users of Fedora – Fedora can be complex as it is so flexible – Lots of effort in getting solutions up and running All interested in how a standard solution could be created that enabled full use of Fedora’s flexibility… …yet could be adapted to meet local, individual needs? It all started at Open Repositories 2008, in Southampton – (the benefit of speaking at conferences) Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 3

Fundamental Assumption #1 No single system can provide the full range of repository- based solutions for a given institution’s needs, …yet sustainable solutions require a common repository infrastructure. No single institution can resource the development of a full range of solutions on its own, …yet each needs the flexibility to tailor solutions to local demands and workflows. Fundamental Assumption #2 Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 4

Hydra A collaborative project Develop an open source toolkit that enables powerful use of Fedora’s capabilities through lightweight tools Unfunded (in itself – supported by partner institutions) – Activity based on identification of a common need Aim to work towards a reusable framework for multipurpose, multifunction, multi-institutional repository- enabled solutions Hydra ‘heads’ – Single body of content, many points of access into it Timeframe – Initially (but now indefinite) Text Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 5

Fedora and end-user interfaces Storage (e.g., SAN, Cloud) Fedora Interface Need an end-user interface Fedora is the digital repository system, holding the content in a highly structured way The content is stored either locally or in the Cloud (currently a slice of the SAN) Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 6

Fedora and Hydra Storage (e.g., SAN, Cloud) Fedora Hydra Hydra provides user interfaces and workflows over the repository Concept of multiple Hydra ‘heads’ over single body of content Fedora is the digital repository system, holding the content in a highly structured way The content is stored either locally or in the Cloud (currently a slice of the SAN) Hydra Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 7

Why Hydra? Why have a digital repository? – We need to manage digital content Fedora has always encouraged the structured management of digital content – How are files/objects organised? – How do they need to be described? – How do they relate to each other? Hydra provides the tools to exploit this and create real digital libraries – Hydra is driven by the needs of the content Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 8

Fundamental Assumption #1 No single system can provide the full range of repository- based solutions for a given institution’s needs, …yet sustainable solutions require a common repository infrastructure. No single institution can resource the development of a full range of solutions on its own, …yet each needs the flexibility to tailor solutions to local demands and workflows. Fundamental Assumption #2 Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 9

Repository as infrastructure (not application) Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 10 Repository Articles Data Images AV Combination Archive Geo End users

Repository as application … Multiple silos? ETDs (Theses) Books, Articles Images Audio- Visual Research Data Maps & GIS Docu- ments ManagementAccessPreservation? Tailored?Sustainable? Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 11

Repository as infrastructure ETDs (Theses) Books, Articles Images Audio- Visual Research Data Maps & GIS Docu- ments Scalable, Robust, Shared Management and Preservation Services Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 12

One Body, Many Heads… ETDs (Theses) Books, Articles Images Audio- Visual Research Data Maps & GIS Docu- ments Scalable, Robust, Shared Management and Preservation Services Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 13

Fundamental Assumption #1 No single system can provide the full range of repository- based solutions for a given institution’s needs, …yet sustainable solutions require a common repository infrastructure. No single institution can resource the development of a full range of solutions on its own, …yet each needs the flexibility to tailor solutions to local demands and workflows. Fundamental Assumption #2 Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 14

Collaboration We all want the best solution for our own organisations We like to share experiences and ideas – For example, through coming to events like this one What makes us decide that working with others may be beneficial? For Hydra – Common need – No identifiable solution elsewhere – Opportunity to be innovative and create new solutions – Collaboration makes open source work Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 15

Barriers to collaboration Inertia Waiting for the perfect tool, funding call or “the answer” “It’s complicated”, or the challenge is too large Ownership of content needs sorting out Cost and capacity Limited capacity/skills within an individual organisation Doing “something” means stop doing something else Running out of steam Collaborations get so far… Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 16

Network benefits Economic benefit - Scaling up delivery Technical benefit - Concentrated development Practical benefit - Delivering more value locally Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 17

Collaboration at the network level Models currently exist – SDLC hosting of IRs for Scottish Universities – White Rose – EPrints Services / BMC Open / Digital Commons Hydra community – Mutual interest and commitment to creating common solutions that fit local needs Focus on repository software service sharing – Can other repository services be shared or developed collaboratively? Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 18

What can Hydra provide? Technology – A set of open source tools that enable the building of local repository infrastructure Build your own Build on the work of others Community – A collaboration of partners (now 28) who are investing in ongoing development of the Hydra platform A range of repository solutions – Covering many material types and ways of presenting digital content Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 19

Hydra technical implementation Fedora – All Hydra partners are Fedora users Solr – Very powerful indexing tool, as used by… Blacklight – Prior development at Virginia (and now Stanford/JHU) for OPAC – Adaptable to repository content Ruby – Agile development / excellent MVC / good testing tools Ruby gems – ActiveFedora, Opinionated Metadata, Solrizer and others Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 20

Trending Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 21

Hydra partnership From the beginning key aims have been and are: – to enable others to join the partnership as and when they wished (Now up to 28 partners) – to establish a framework for sustaining a Hydra community as much as any technical outputs that emerge Establishing a semi-legal basis for contribution and partnership “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” (African proverb) Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 22

Hydra Partners Three continents Multiple types of organisation Multiple types of repository Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 23

Eight strategic priorities 1.Solution bundles 2.Turnkey applications 3.Vendor ecosystem 4.Training 5.Documentation 6.Code sharing 7.Community ties 8.Grow the User base Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 24

Reflections (from Hull) Only could have provided local solution through collaboration Hydra can’t do everything, but provides capability and confidence we can adapt and implement solutions to meet needs, now and in the future – Our digital curation journey is ongoing, and we know where we are going Relationship between Hydra and Fedora is vital – Community support required for each and across them Success has come through good software design and patterns as much as from ability to address digital curation use cases Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 25

To conclude Technology + community = sustainability Hydra Europe Symposium | April 2015 | 26 Access Digital repository Preservation Management and maintenance

Thank you ( with thanks to Tom Cramer, Stanford, for some of the slides)