Replacing Digital Repository Infrastructure at Los Alamos National Laboratory
The Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library recently completed a major effort to replace its legacy, 20 year-old, repository infrastructure. This project encompassed successfully deploying new repository software and implementing an entirely new information management ecosystem for LANL’s corpus of unclassified scientific and technical information (STI). Overall the work included deployment of community-supported open-source software, development of custom-built platforms designed to fit the Research Library’s specific needs, and integrations with external government and commercial systems. The core repository we implemented was Dataverse while also making extensive use of the development framework Laravel to build key components of our infrastructure including search and retrieval UIs and an orchestration middleware. Enhanced functionality includes a wider range of programmatic tools and features that streamline complex tasks, automate routine processes, and better rationalize integrations across all Research Library applications. Furthermore, our new repository ecosystem’s flexibility, modularity, and adaptability allows it to serve both existing workflows as well as be extended with potential new services to meet laboratory mission needs.