Indian Virtual Herbarium Project: Implementing an institutional knowledge repository as a digital archive – Design, development, solution architecture and implementation

Abstract

The Indian Virtual Herbarium (IVH) portal is proposed as a customization of the DSpace Digital Library System for archiving. The portal will consist of a user-friendly interface. The classification hierarchy will consist of the Herbariums at the top level, collection plants and then the actual plant image stored in the tiff/jpeg format. The images are assumed to be scanned in an appropriate way with the desired resolution. This paper describes the solution architecture based on the digital library product DSpace, and also outlines the requirements of System Software. The three major missions of this paper are to provide technology services for the IVH, DH and Production Projects; to deal with the standards of information organization; and to build the National Botanical Digital Archives Resource Center. The set up of the collaboration and communication mechanisms involve an integrated searching system; a knowledge management system; and a digital preservation mechanism. Backup services also have to be provided