Repository66.org Map Blog

I’ve just performed a small upgrade to the repository mashup map:

• Repositories powered by OPUS and ETD-DB now have their own coloured dots so they stand out separately. Seeing as they both have more installations than some of the other repository platforms which have their own colours, I thought it only fair to give them their own.
• Like in the normal Google Maps interface, you can now scroll in and out of the map using your mouse scroll wheel.

An email has just been sent to the SPARC-IR email list about the Repository66 maps saying:

Stuart Lewis’s world map of more than 1,000 repositories at http://www.repository66.org will be a centerpiece of the SPARC repositories meeting November 17 & 18, 2008. Don’t let your dot on the world map be overlooked. Please take a moment to update your listing at openDOAR or ROAR as soon as you can.

I thought I’d give a overview of how repositories get added to the map, so that the process is transparent. It works as follows:

• Periodically a script is run that downloads a list of repositories indexed by ROAR. Repositories that are added to ROAR can either have a location set by the user, or ROAR can take a guess at the location of the repository from its IP address.
• The script then downloads a similar list from OpenDOAR. Repositories that are added to OpenDOAR have a location added and checked by the OpenDOAR team.
• If the location of a repository is not known by either directory, it is flagged in a list for me to fix. When I have time, I locate these repositories.
• Repositories are matched in each directory by use of their OAI-PMH base URL. If this isn’t possible, the script tries to match on the normal repository web URL.
• The data is then automatically ‘mashed-up’ to create a single dataset, which is then loaded on to the website.

The list of repositories on the site comes from ROAR, but is augmented by data held in OpenDOAR. If a repository is listed in OpenDOAR, but not ROAR, it is not currently included in the map. The reason for this is that it is highly likely that there are entries that exist in both directories, but have slightly different OAI-PMH URLs stored in each. By using all repositories from both directories would cause duplicated repositories on the map. So one of the directories needs to be the master list.

The reason for using ROAR over OpenDOAR as the definitive list is that its entry criteria are not as strict as OpenDOAR’s, so potentially contains a wider spectrum of repositories. However now that the list of repositories in OpenDOAR is larger than in ROAR, this decision may be changed. I’m open to persuasion on this!

One of the most useful features of ROAR (one of the providers of data for the map) are the growth graphs that they show for each repository, detailing how they have grown (or shrunk) over time. They show an easy to understand representation of the data.

The repository mashup map has today been upgraded to include similar growth graphs for each repository. The graphs are plotted using the same data from ROAR, and can be seen by clicking on a repository, and the selecting the ‘Growth’ tab.

If there are any other new features that you would like to see on the maps, please leave a comment!

This morning the Repository Mashup Map hit the magic number of 1,000 repositories represented on the map! Between them, they now hold over 8.7 million items.

There has also been a bit of work going on behind the scenes trying to make the maps perform better in your browser. They now close more cleanly, ensuring that they do not use up resources on your computer once you move on to view another page. Over the next few weeks it is hoped that we can reduce the loading time of the maps by almost a half, but at the same time introduce some growth graphs for each repository. Stay tuned!

To celebrate the first ever ‘Open Access Week‘ running from the 7th to the 11th April 2008, the maps have been upgraded with lots of the latest open access repositories that have sprung up over the last few months.

There are now over 920 repositories shown on the map, containing a whopping 8 million items between them!

The dots keep growing in number, and a new colour has arrived on the the scene - red!

There are now over 740 repositories represented on the map, and this number is growing each week. Remember, if your repository is missing, but is listed in ROAR, then use the locator interface to place it on the map. If your repository is not listed in ROAR, then list it!

The new red dots on the map represent BEPress‘ Digital Commons repositories. Since this is the next largest software system below DSpace and EPrints, we thought it deserved a category all to itself.

Several things have happensed with the repository map mashup recently: the maps now shows more than 600 repositories of the 898 listed in ROAR (at 2nd June 2007), and a new ‘repository size icons’ option has been introduced.

There are now 67.14 percent of the known repositories marked on the map. If your repository is not yet shown on the map, please register it with ROAR and OpenDOAR if it has not been already, and please use the locator facility to place it correctly on the maps. We’d love 100 percent coverage!

The ‘repository size icons’  option allows you to see the relative size of different repositories. Plotted using logarithmic scales, you can now find not just the geographical spread of repositories, but also the distribution of repository sizes across different locations.

The repository map mashup now has over 400 repositories shown, which between them hold over 4 million items! Because of the number of repositories, the icons used to display them have had to be shrunk to fit them all on!

The traffic to the site continues to grow, as do the number of links to the site:

1. The University of ‘Lyon 2′ has written an article about the maps entitled ‘Lyon 2 est sur la carte‘ (Lyon 2 is on the map). An English translation is available.
2. OpenDOAR have now officially launched their API, and use the repository map mashup as an example of the API in use.
3. In a Japanese-language ‘Current Awareness Portal‘ there is a blog entry about the maps.
4. Peter Suber’s ‘Open Access News‘ blog once again mentions the maps, and the interface available for users to position, or re-position their repositories.
5. http://openaccess.uib.no/ mentions the maps as ‘Ny oversikt over publiseringsarkiv’ (New overview of publications archive).
6. http://www.librariansworld.com/ includes a page about the maps.

The repository map mashup site has now taken another step towards providing a comprehensive global view of repository locations.

The problem to date has been the collection of the geographical location of each repository. So far nearly a hundred have been located by hand, whilst the remaining have been located using an IP address –> location tool (http://hostip.info). Those located using their IP address may be in the wrong location either due to being placed generically (e.g. in the middle of their city) or because they are hosted in a different place to their institution. However there are several hundred other repositories indexed by ROAR and OpenDOAR which need locating on the map.

The solution? There is now an interface to allow repository administrators to either place a missing repository, or update an existing repository location using a Google map. The same interface also prompts administrators of repositories not listed in ROAR or OpenDOAR to register with those directories.

The new interface can be found at http://maps.repository66.org/where/