Becoming a Spoke

 

Every institution that contributes descriptions to the Hub can choose to become a Spoke. The Spokes software is completely free to download. However, you must have technical support at your institution in order to maintain the hardware and software.

Becoming a Spoke involves:

• Setting up a suitable server and operating system
• Downloading the Cheshire and Cheshire for Archives software
• Providing a connection from your Spoke to the central Hub, which uses a search protocol to remotely search your Spoke indexes
• Maintaining the hardware and software over time, with periodic upgrades

If you wish to become a Spoke, a representative of your institution will need to sign a Memorandum of Understanding. This document covers issues such as security, data quality, availability and software support. It is not a binding legal document, but it clarifies what the Archives Hub team will provide and what you need to do to maintain a Spoke.
If you are interested in becoming a Spoke, please contact us via our usual email address.

If you do not have technical support or if you are likely to only contribute a small number of descriptions to the Hub, we would not recommend becoming a Spoke, as you will need to commit resources to run and maintain your system.

Further information

We have a jiscmail list called archives-hub-spokes for news and maintenance announcements.  

We arrange periodic meetings of Spokes to discuss issues, queries and solutions.

Examples of Spoke web interfaces:
Liverpool: http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/ead/ 
Glasgow: http://cheshire.cent.gla.ac.uk/ead/

You may like to read a case study from the University of Liverpool about becoming a spoke.

You can read more about the technology underlying the Hub and Spokes in 'Distributed Information Retrieval for Digital Libraries' [PDF format], a paper presented by Professor Ray Larson at the European Conference on Digital Libraries in Trondheim, Norway, 2003.