Unit 07: Outside the Box

The unit on DSpace is winding up.  I for one am glad: I had attempted to get fancy and do some configuration, which did not work well at all.  If we were continuing on with DSpace, the daily reminders that that one form was not doing what I wanted it to would be too much for me, and I would have to keep fiddling with it, which would only lead for more frustration and repository angst.

There are plenty of sources of repository angst this semester: after working on our own demo repositories, we read about institutions’ production repositories.  These are inevitably facing a Difficulty of Epic Proportions, be it short-lived funding or lack of institutional support or a guiding document with a fatal omisson.

Whenever I am feeling disheartened by any of this, I go to a repository that does not have any of these shadows hanging over it: Ravelry. On the homepage, Ravelry identifies itself unassumingly as “a free site for knitters and crocheters.”  While Ravelry is a website, and its intended users are knitters and crocheters, it goes far beyond that.

Beyond the login page, users will find that the site is divided into several areas: Patterns (a pattern database and repository), Yarns (a yarn repository), People (a database of users), Forums, Groups (a directory of all groups created by users), and, last but definitely not least, My Notebook (all content you, the user, have created, be it a list of knitting patterns or yarn you own, projects you are working on, or friends you have on Ravelry).

Although no librarians helped plan Ravelry, it has many resemblances to the kind of environment librarians are trying to create with institutional repositories and VREs.  All the separate parts of the site are integrated, so a user can begin on the forum, skip to a friend’s notebook to view a project she’s knitting, then link to the page for the pattern, and from there view everyone who has knit that pattern, read every comment, blog post, and forum post associated with this pattern, and even look at recommended yarns.  Users, be they professional pattern designers, longtime knitters and crocheters, or newcomers to the hobby, contribute most of the content.  Ravelry has barely half a dozen employees, and an army of volunteers assist ensuring the quality and accuracy of the content.  Finally, in spite of the complexity that results from such rich, varied, and interconnected information, the interface is intuitive and seamless.

Getting bogged down by our immediate surroundings can happen easily; I’m glad that there are resources out there, like Ravelry, that have the same values as library repositories and VREs, but are different enough that they can offer inspiration for ways libraries can bring their ideas to fruition.