Before I start talking about DSpace, let me just say that it was a challenge to find a web-based resource related to digital materiality. I had to use my Yahoo! search engine, read the definition of digital materiality on Wikipedia, and then had to consult Ask.com for assistance. But after a half-hour of searching around, I finally came across Paradigm’s Workbook on Digital Private Paper, which referred to DSpace as a useful resource of digital materiality. DSpace (http://www.dspace.org/) is a software founded by HP and MIT Libraries in 2006 that is used by academic, commercial, and non-profit organizations that want to construct digital repositories.It serves four main purposes: to manage, to provide access, to share, and to preserve. More than 500 preeminent research institutions worldwide located in more than 50 countries use its services. It is interesting to note that many search engines such as Google and Bing keep a close eye on DSpace. More than 60 percent of the visitors of Dspace’s digital repositories come across them via search engines because information that are publically available are indexed by the search engines.
Although I have no familiarity with DSpace, I am pretty sure that it is a vital tool for historians, DHers, and archivists who are highly concerned with digital materiality for the sake of storing text and conveying its true meaning. I am sure that in the future that it will play a much larger role in further establishing the digital humanities.
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