Archiving News in a University using Open Source S0ftware

By

Surendran CherukodanJunior Librarian

Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin-22

& Dr. Sheeja N.K. Assistant Librarian

Cochin University of Science and Technology Cochin-22, Kerala

Newspapers

Essential source of information

Cover variety of information- events,

For a University -News and Views related to teaching, learning and research

Report the activities occurred in the campus

Need

Attempts are less to index, digitize, store and access news and views essential for a

university community.

Objectives

How to archive news and views in a University using Open Source Software

What are the strategies How DSpace can be used for the purpose Live example from CUSAT Digital Library

CUSAT Digital Library

Made Using DSpace Open Source Software

DSpace Communities

CUSAT News is one of the communities that contain news items related to CUSAT

News @CUSAT Digital Library

Description of one news item in DSpace

News in PDF file in DSpace

News Item in local language in DSpace

Benefits of Using DSpace for News Archiving

Newspaper editions are region specific. News items preserved in DSpace can be viewed and used online by all.

Getting search result in Google No cost for software Best Community Support

Challenges of News Archiving

Continuous effort from the faculty and library professionals in monitoring and capturing news and views in their respective community.

Indexing , abstracting and converting the documents in the bit stream accepted by Dspace software.

Technical challenges- support of the university in procuring required hardware, customisation, server maintenance, effective mechanism for back-up and coordination of document management in the system.

Conclusion The process of archiving news and

views is an essential activity in a university. It shall improve the way people use news and views. It shall help the university to store the required news items in an organized, secure, and searchable archive and preserve it for long time. The use of open source software platform for news archiving helps to save software cost. The support of experts in the field is also available through email forum. The practice of using DSpace open source software for news archiving is a simple, cost effective and reliable method for all types of institutions.