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Fedora: an architecture for complex objects and their relationships

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Abstract

The Fedora architecture is an extensible framework for the storage, management, and dissemination of complex objects and the relationships among them. Fedora accommodates the aggregation of local and distributed content into digital objects and the association of services with objects. This allows an object to have several accessible representations, some of them dynamically produced. The architecture includes a generic Resource Description Framework (RDF)-based relationship model that represents relationships among objects and their components. Queries against these relationships are supported by an RDF triple store. The architecture is implemented as a web service, with all aspects of the complex object architecture and related management functions exposed through REST and SOAP interfaces. The implementation is available as open-source software, providing the foundation for a variety of end-user applications for digital libraries, archives, institutional repositories, and learning object systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computing and Information Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Carl Lagoze, Sandy Payette, Edwin Shin & Chris Wilper

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  1. Carl Lagoze
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  2. Sandy Payette
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  3. Edwin Shin
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  4. Chris Wilper
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Correspondence to Carl Lagoze.

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Lagoze, C., Payette, S., Shin, E. et al. Fedora: an architecture for complex objects and their relationships. Int J Digit Libr 6, 124–138 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-005-0130-3

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