Interesting repository user interfaces

There are a number of interesting repository user interfaces being developed by the repositories in the start up and enhancement strand of the JISC repositories and preservation programme.

The Faroes project is developing a repository for language teachers called language box. The repository is designed to be very lightweight and is collecting basic learning resources (web pages, power points, images, videos, etc) rather than complex learning objects.

Their beta repository can be seen at: http://languagebox.eprints.org/ The bull fighting resource is a particularly good example of how the repostitory interface handles different types of resources. I think the interface pulls off the trick of being instantly familiar, you can start to use the repository without stopping to think or scanning around the interface for the option you want.

The Kultur project is developing a repository for the creative arts departments at 3 institutions. As most of their deposits contain images of artworks then they needed to develop their eprints interface to suit these objects. The demo that they have so far is very attractive:  http://kultur-demo2.eprints.org/. The slideshow on the home page makes it clear that we are dealing with a visual repository and they have taken the interesting option of hiding all metadata for an item until you click on the further information box.

The Lirolem project produced a repository that has a simple but very effective way of displaying items which consist of multiple formats. Here is an example of an item that is text and images: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1606/ Notice how responsive the interface is, clicking between the document and images tabs is instant as is clicking between different images. They have also chosen to include a “bookmark this” link on every repository item.

I am also hearing good things about the new, improved interface for Primo: http://dablog.ulcc.ac.uk/2008/10/21/primo-new-version-coming-soon/ 

All of these interfaces have taken the approach of displaying the item in the most prominent and appropriate way while relegating the metadata to the bottom of the screen or hiding it in a clickable box.

I know all these examples are eprints and that most of the work developing these examples has been done by Southampton, but these are the ones that have come to my attention so far. Apologies if I have missed any others. I would love to hear about interesting interfaces on other software platforms.

October 23, 2008 | Filed Under interface, repositories 

Comments

One Response to “Interesting repository user interfaces”

  1. Joss Winn on October 23rd, 2008 9:33 pm

    Thanks for mentioning the LIROLEM project. We’ve also integrated video previewing as well as images. If an EPrint consists of documents, images and video, there are three corresponding tabbed views. If there is just one category of EPrint file, there is just one tabbed view, as you can see from clicking on this example video: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1543/ All video files deposited are converted to FLV for preview while the original file can still be downloaded.

Leave a Reply