Shared Software, Services, and Infrastructure for Sustainable Repository Networks

Hundreds of both general purpose and discipline-specific repositories serve geoscience, bioscience, and anthroscience needs for data preservation, discovery, and access. These repositories serve overlapping communities of researchers, and each have been specialized to fit the needs of their particular audience. Some focus on fast and lightweight deposit using mainly bibliographic metadata, while others support deposit of complex datasets with detailed, domain-specific metadata to enable interpretation and reuse. Despite these differences, repositories also possess many common characteristics that should enable them to leverage shared infrastructure to decrease the cost of software development, maintenance, and operations. For example, many repositories within the DataONE network use the Metacat data repository platform for both data storage and access and the MetacatUI client application for metadata authoring, deposit, and discovery. Similar shared platforms exist within other networks such as Dataverse, GeoNetwork, and CKAN, while many other groups create their own custom, in-house software for repository data and metadata management. In this presentation, we outline some challenges to realizing shared software, services, and infrastructure among repositories, even with aligned missions, as well as the pathways that facilitate repository adoption of and contribution to shared, open source data management software. By sharing repository software and services, we see a pathway to both improving the sustainability of repository networks, and towards freeing up resources for innovative new services needed for effective data integration and reuse for science.