The DSpace Foundation and Fedora Commons, two of the largest providers of open source software for managing and providing access to digital content, have announced today that they will join their organizations to pursue a common mission. Jointly, they will provide leadership and innovation in open source technologies for global communities who manage, preserve, and provide access to digital content.

The joined organization, named “DuraSpace,” will sustain and grow its flagship repository platforms – Fedora and DSpace. DuraSpace will also expand its portfolio by offering new technologies and services that respond to the dynamic environment of the Web and to new requirements from existing and future users. DuraSpace will focus on supporting existing communities and will also engage a larger and more diverse group of stakeholders in support of its not-for-profit mission. Read full press release

DSpace was jointly developed in 2002 by Hewlett-Packard and the MIT Libraries. Today, there are more than 500 organizations worldwide using the software to manage, preserve, and share their scholarly output. MIT’s online institutional repository, DSpace at MIT, currently holds over 20,000 MIT theses and the digital works of 50 communities representing collections of MIT faculty, researchers, labs and centers.