Many interesting discussions about repository approaches for the arts followed, both in the workshops, plenary debates, and over the rather smashing buffet lunch. One interesting direction the discussions took was in suggesting that while endeavours like KULTUR and PRIMO provide examples of ways to develop repositories for visual and performing arts, they don’t offer any kind of ready-made application for institutions wanting to create their own repositories with a minimum of fuss and cost. Is it possible that the benefits of such projects (particularly JISC-funded projects) would be greater if the outputs generated a reusable product rather than just a script or a recipe? Bill agreed to discuss this idea further within RSP, and I look forward to following it up soon.

I began the day by chairing the final meeting of RPAG(the repositories and preservation advisory group.) We had a short meeting mainly to follow up on discussions we had been having on how the group had operated and how JISC might make use of advisory bodies in future. Those who expressed an opinion all felt it had been useful to them, but we all had concerns about how our time, and the JISC Executive’s time, might have been used more effectively. Future advisory groups may try to split responsibility for some areas into smaller working groups. All were agreed that the face-to-face meetings were invaluable, but we weren’t all agreed on which online technology would be best to use in between times. Enthusiasts for tools like ideascale were matched by those who found them unusable.

The meeting proper opened with some background and perspective from Rachel Bruce and Neil Grindley of JISC and myself. I tried – partly seriously, but without much expectation of accuracy – to give a one-line summary of what each project set out to do. But there were two things I meant to say which I failed to do. One was to look forward to the theme of day 2 (Value) and stress that repositories are not ends in themselves, but need to be thought of in terms of value, impact and benefits to someone. The second point I omitted was to remind us that , for innovation projects, failure in one sense can still mean success, as long as we understand the nature of the failure and are able to use it to improve and adapt future work. Not achieving what you set out to do is disappointing. Analysing the reasons for that and making sure others are aware of them can be of great value.

But it was the rest of the event that provided greatest interest. The discussion sessions on text mining, research data, teaching and learning repositories and more; presentations from projects from stakeholder, developer and other perspectives; posters and demos from many of the projects; and the fever of activities in the ideas room, which deployed technology ranging from post-it notes upwards to catalyse, capture and refine ideas from the attendees. These activities gave the event much more of a participatory feel – everyone became a contributor rather than being a consumer.

I learned a few things over the course of a day or two, most of them unexpected. David Flanders (via Chris Rusbridge) passed on the neat idea of feeding funding proposals through Wordle before marking them. That’s what ULCC’s AIDA project looked like. Perhaps you ought to try the same with your proposals prior to submitting them?

I learned that talking unprepared and unscripted to a video camera doesn’t produce great results unless you’ve had practice or training – neither of which I’ve had. I knew that in an abstract sense and now have the unfortunate experience to back it up. But Andy McGregor and Dave Flanders did capture some other people talking far more sense than I did and far more clearly, and you can see the results on the dev8D youtube channel.

Andrew Prescott’s overview of the Welsh Repository Network provided us with the surprising finding that smaller institutions are more, not less, likely to want to run their own repository rather than contract it out to someone else.

And via a serendipitous typo, we all contemplated whether working in a repositoire might not be an altogether more rarified and sophisticated career option than working with a repository.

There will be quite a few changes from the current beta version. Many of these are the result of Professor Katharine Ellis’s extensive advocacy and consultation, among both the musical research community, who will be the system’s users, and among the repositories community, at events like the JISC Rights workshop, and the Repository Fringe in Edinburgh. Others have been made possible as a result of the experience we’ve gained on other Eprints projects, like Linnean Online, Their Past Your Future and SNEEP.

As you can see from the screenshot, we’ve freshened up the overall look, and Rory has had considerable success with the embedded Flash player, which is going to make both video and audio content in PRIMO far more usable and accessible than the present, download-oriented system.

There are more changes and enhancements and a snag list as long as your arm, but we’re confident that when PRIMO gets its full and final launch in January, it will be a major improvement. There is also exciting new content currently being reviewed by the Committee, that will showcase the potential value of PRIMO to its community, and, we hope, encourage other musical researchers to contribute their own research-in-practice.

Debate at the launch ranged over many issues. The submission workflow in particular is something that some potential contributors are concerned about, and we expect this can be simplified and streamlined. However, the two areas that add the greatest complexity to the process – the mechanical and performing rights requirements pf MCPS/PRS, and the PRIMO peer-review process – may not yield to much more simplification.

The repository is now in a pilot phase, with 6 selected submissions. It will be further developed in time for a beta version next Spring (April/May, realistically). In the meantime will continue to develop documentation and identify improvements on the project pages of the PRIMO wiki.