A presentation given at the Open Repositories conference in 2010. In part, the proposal reads and While repositories provide obvious benefits in hosting and managing content, it is equally clear that there is no “one size fits all” solution to the range of digital asset management needs at a typical institution, much less across institutions. A system that supports the submission, approval and dissemination of electronic theses and dissertations, for example, has demonstrably different requirements than a digitization workflow solution, an e-science data repository, or media preservation and access system. There is a clear need in the repository community to readily develop and deploy content-, domain-, and institution-specific solutions that integrate the flexibility and richness of customized applications and workflows with the underlying power of repositories for content management, access and preservation. This paper will provide an overview of Hydra’s philosophy, architecture, and components, as well as demonstrations of various Hydra installations. The paper will also provide a progress report on Hydra development to date and its overall roadmap, as well as provide observations on the successes and challenges of community-based development of shared repository solutions.
A poster given at the 2014 Open Repositories held in Helsinki. This poster will demonstrate the breadth of usage of the Hydra open repository solution within Europe, and highlight how the institutions using it have engaged with the Hydra community to establish their own repositories and fed into ongoing development. Readers will become aware of the use of Hydra within Europe, and how this relates to the Hydra project overall.
A workshop given at the 2014 Open Repositories held in Helsinki. The Hydra for Managers workshop will enable repository managers and curators of digital collections to learn about the Hydra Project, encompassing both the community and the technical development. Focusing on the community primarily, topics covered will include an exploration of how Hydra fits local use cases, how to work with Hydra as a repository, and how to engage with the community to serve local needs and the sustainability Hydra going forward. The workshop will run for 90 minutes and will comprise a mixture of presentations and time to discuss questions raised by attendees. The workshop will be led by established Hydra Partners with different perspectives on using Hydra from differently-sized institutions.
A presentation given at the London School of Economics and Political Science on 22nd November 2012. The meeting brought together a number of institutions from the UK (and some from Europe more widely) interested in the potential of Hydra. The presentation was one of a number describing the then current use of Hydra in the UK.
Chris Awre reports on the Hydra UK event held on 22 November 2012 at the Library of the London School of Economics. The meeting brought together a number of institutions from the UK (and some from Europe more widely) interested in the potential of Hydra.
A short presentation given at the Repository Fringe 2013, held in Edinburgh on 1-2 August 2013. A video recording is available at the 'Related URL' below.
The Hydra Project started in 2008 through a partnership between the University of Hull, the University of Virginia, Stanford University and Fedora Commons (now DuraSpace) to create tools that support use of the Fedora digital repository. Hull adopted the software outputs from this collaboration for its institutional repository in 2011 and remains an active Partner in the community, serving on the Steering Group and fostering development of the community and software in the UK and mainland Europe and The community now has 35 formal Partners and over 70 known adopters internationally. In June 2017 Hydra changed its name to Samvera, Icelandic for 'being together', to recognize the value gained from multiple institutions working together to create the underlying common basis upon which multiple different repository solutions have been implemented. Samvera can be adopted through a set of tools to develop your own repository (using a package called Hyrax as the starting point) and is also available as a complete repository solution, hosted or local, through the use of Hyku. The community has been at the heart of making Samvera a success, and will continue to underpin its future direction.